


all too well

by secretsarenotforfree



Category: The Amazing Spider-Man (Movies - Webb), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Baby Superhero, F/M, M/M, Slow Burn, Wry Humor, gwen's not dead, life is hard when you're legally dead, oscorp deals exclusively in evil grave robbing scientists, your boyfriend is still traumatized from sort of being reponsible for your death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-10-04
Packaged: 2018-10-29 20:55:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 31,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10861911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretsarenotforfree/pseuds/secretsarenotforfree
Summary: She's not a ghost, Gwen swears. The nightmares of falling down a never ending clock tower are real. The certificate of death is too, but the skin at the inside of her elbows is ravaged with the needle marks of eager scientists. The radioactive strands of spider venom introduced to her after 'death' course through blood that is very much real, thank you very much.So is Gwen's want to use these powers for good. Namely, to save others. And to prove to her (ex?) boyfriend that she can't be hurt anymore.





	1. Awake.

The metal is cool against her bare back. It sears into her naked form, prickling at her as her lungs fight to breathe. Her chest heaves, out of use, electricity arching through her limbs and activating heart, organ somehow still viable in the young woman’s chest.

_(Peter, laughing, eyes crinkling with happiness as he holds her tightly. The brisk wind tears at her hair but Gwen doesn’t notice, lost in this brilliant boy and the love he’s practically radiating, why yes of course they still haven’t caught Jack the Ripper yet-)_

Coughing violently Gwen Stacy surges into a seated position, blinking eyes that weren’t weighed down by the sorrows of death and shivering limbs that were pale and cold from the laboratory environment around her and not from a lack of blood flow. She is naked, and the blonde girl does not hesitate to cross her arms over her chest. The sanitary plastic sheet over her body wrinkles and sticks to the sites of the titanium gurney she’d been on, and Gwen shakes, afraid and unaware. The lab coats hanging in the corner are embroidered with _Oscorp_ and she comes to the terrifying realization that her old employer _kidnapped_ her.

Or is kidnapped the right term? 

To be kidnapped you should probably be alive, first.

( _Peter’s name bounces off the inner walls of the clocktower, her footing as unsteady as her future. Her boyfriend’s voice is just as frantic, no Gwen don’t worry, he’ll take care of you, he’ll save you, but Harry’s insane. Harry is poisoned and sadistic and wild in a way she’s never quite seen before and you see, she was not taught how to find steady footing on the inner workings of a clock she’s a_ geneticist, _goddammit-)_

Her legs shake, uncertain onto the cement floor and sparks run along the wires plugged into the wall, evidence of an electric malfunction apparent in the underground area. Gwen steals a lab coat from the wall and wraps it tightly around herself, easing open the door of what had been her confinement. She sneaks one look back – blood samples lined up neatly on a table, microscopes, charts, and several species of spiders captured in glass containers – and second guesses herself. Whatever has been happening here, with her _body_ without her _consent_ , there can be no record. Gwen smashes the computer screens with a microscope thrown by a trembling hand, and prays no one will hear. The blood samples and folders go into deep pockets and she staggers out the door, finding herself at the foot of stairs.

( _There was a blinding pain at the base of her skull and it’s spotty from there, Peter’s salty tears and whispered cries, his hands almost gentler than she had ever known, and there were sirens and funeral homes, and she was moving away from a black casket she was sure was meant to be_ hers-)

The stairs end near the backlot, a space that Gwen remembers even now, and she follows the trail of her memories out into the street. She has no money to call a taxi, no way to get home, and is wandering the streets of New York like a prostitute, but she has no choice. For the next two hours she wills her feet to know the way and ignores the looks from those around her, the catcalls and the wolf whistles, the propositions and grubby hands tearing at what little clothing she has. For not the first time the blonde girl is grateful for the apartment building her father’s job had provided and its safe part of town, and a wobbling sigh of relief leave lungs that are working way too hard.

The trio of pine trees flood her with memories of her little brothers and Gwen laughs brokenly as she climbs the 20 flights. She didn’t have it in her to fake it past the guard and crouched under the desk, fleeing to the stairs. The door she’s opened nearly every day of her life for 19 years stares her in the face but Gwen hesitates.

( _You never forget the sound of your mother weeping, even if you’re hearing it from the great beyond. That kind of grief haunts even a dead soul.)_

The hand that approaches the doorknob was limp and dragging on the ground but weeks earlier, attached to a body cradled by New Yorks most talkative superhero. The grey-green eyes that wordlessly ponder the entrance had closed, some thought forever, and the beating heart within wasn’t met to be pulsing with life.

She knocks, though.

Once, and then again, louder. Gwen is unsure of what day of the week it is, what time of the night, but she wills someone to answer. Phillip, maybe. He was sixteen, stronger than the younger Howard and Simon. Or her mother but then – the shock could be too much. Not that there would ever be a good time.

As luck would have, it is her mother’s broken brown eyes that lock onto hers when the door opens.

“You can’t be my daughter.” Helen whispers, pain in every line of her face. “My daughter is _dead_.”

Gwen's laugh is brittle and her stance unsure, but the look in her eyes is too unmistakably her to be faked. “Then maybe I am.” She whispers, eyes filling with tears. “Mom, what happened to me?”

Helen’s face crumples. She doesn’t know what god or demon has caused this to happen, but she does not wish to question it. Her _child_ , her _oldest_ , the first from her body and never one she’d wanted to bury, was standing in front of her looking as if she had to claw her way back from hell. Even if this was a mirage Helen would embrace it, for however long as it lasted.

Gwen falls into her mothers arm and the Stacy women crumple to the ground of the hallway, holding tight to each other and rocking, crying quietly.

Gwen Stacy has come back to life.

And in the face of such a miracle, it is easy to understand why she doesn’t compute the way that her fingertips had clung unnaturally tightly to the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'VE BOUNCED THIS IDEA IN MY HEAD SO LONG THAT IT FEELS REALLY WEIRD TO GIVE BIRTH TO IT, FINALLY.
> 
> I love the Spider-Gwen of the new comics. I love her badassery and her brilliance and I'm forever pissed that Emma Stone can't bring to live the film version of Spider-Gwen that we all deserve. I also adore the pairing of Gwen and Peter in every universe ever, and I'm disappointed that there does not yet exist one where they are dorky scientist supernerds in love, so here one is. The chapters will be longer after this one, but anyway. I hope you guys like it! :)


	2. Reunite.

She doesn’t know where to go from here.

Her bed feels scratchy and uncomfortable against her skin, the sensation rubbing her raw though there was no physical evidence of it against her skin. Gwen sits, knees pulled up to her chest, against her headboard, and stares at the window. All the noises are too loud (police sirens, Spanish music from the couple next door, the wind making the shades hit against the pane) and she can’t go to sleep. The creamy blue walls that housed her for eighteen years are no longer comforting, but seem as if they are the walls of another room. A room with a girl that laughed and studied and snuck her vigilante boyfriend in at times during the night that she really, honestly shouldn’t. A room with a girl who knew the risks and took them anyway.

Gwen had taken some money from her savings and moved out almost right after graduation. _Oscorp_ may have been shady (was still _exceedingly s_ hady if one could draw conclusions from recent events), but it paid their interns well, well enough to get her a shitty little apartment in the mostly college student occupied side of Manhattan. With Cindy, her roommate and fellow Columbia University student, she’d had a great life there. They made dumplings on Thursday nights and watched rom-coms on stressful nights just to throw popcorn at the screen and yell at how dumb the female characters were being. She wonders if Cindy had a new roommate now, and if they knew how to tell when she was in a bad mood. Gwen did. If Cindy closed the door quietly behind her, threw her keys onto the couch and started bitching about how Harry Styles was _not_ the hottest One Directioner Gwen knew when to duck and cover.

Gwen also wonders if Cindy brought her favorite umbrella to her funeral (She imagines it was rainy, as dreary and cold as the day she buried her father). It was black with grey polka dots, and Cindy said it made her feel like a goth ladybug. Gwen agreed.

This all being said Helen had begun the process of turning it into a guest room. The boys refused to live in a place with ‘girl cooties’ so it was the most reasonable use of the space, but she hadn’t gotten very far. Gwen’s books still lined the shelves, the area next to the window still papered in science fair tickets, photos of her and her dad at the Yankees games, and receipts from her favorite takeout place. Clothing peeks out of the cardboard boxes on the floor, and her lamp is no longer plugged in to the wall.

She feels like a stranger in more ways than one.

Her eyes catch on the ticking clock hanging on the wall and her stomach lurches. She gets out of bed and lifts it off the nail, placing it on the ground with more force than what was perhaps strictly necessary. The plastic screen cracks a bit, spider web lines shooting from where Gwen’s thumbs were, but she dismisses it to shitty workmanship as she works the back off, shutting off the mechanism. Perhaps she’ll stick with digital, at least for now. The ticking noise only brings back memories of falling, _falling, **falling**_ and the anguished cry of a boy who loves her. Loved, maybe. Gwen doesn’t know anything for sure anymore.

When she and her mom had pulled themselves together enough to get off the floor, Helen immediately started worrying how they were going to tell the boys.

“You were – well Gwen you were _d_ – you were gone and we started grieving. It’s been three weeks did you know? Of course you didn’t. You were in a _lab._ ” Helen’s hand is so tight on Gwen’s wrist she can see the blue of the veins that have started to show more over the years. It doesn’t feel like she’s going to let go. “But we didn’t know that and buried you, well we buried an empty _casket_ , I knew we should have had the viewing.” She turns to Gwen and looks at her with Phillip’s steady brown eyes, but these are full of relief and exhaustion. “This isn’t a trick, right? You’re here? You’re alive? This isn’t a dream.”

The blonde girl swallows a gulp that burns like fire down her throat and shakes her head in confirmation. “I’m here. I’m alive.” The sounds coming from her mouth are raspy with disuse but it’s still her voice, and it startles her every time she hears it. Gwen thinks it’s because the moment she closed her eyes falling down that clock tower she knew it would never leave her lips again.

Their conundrum is solved when Simon comes down the hall wearing his favorite fireman pajama’s, Dad’s old jacket on his shoulders, rubbing his eyes and complaining that he can’t sleep. Her little brother is all of _eight_ Gwen remembers like a shock, and the emotions that flash across his face like headlights go too quickly for her to see.

He runs to her, and nearly decks her in the stomach with the force of it, burying his face into her chest. The reasonable, sane, quiet Gwen in the back of her mind comments that this would be much less awkward feeling if she had her clothes on but the newly undead Gwen ignores it, holding her baby brother to her as tight as she can.

“I knew you weren’t dead.”

Simon’s voice is muffled by the lab coat and crinkles the sheafs of paper but Gwen shushes him, stroking his flaxen white blonde hair. She didn’t think the sight of his atrociously juvenile borderline bowlcut would drive her to tears, but here they were.

“I’m sorry it took me so long to come back.” Gwen whispers, but Simon only burrows closer, hands fisted iron tight in the fabric at her back.

Helen moves down the hall and wakes up Phillip and Howard. She doesn’t know how they immediately take their mother telling them that their sister is alive, but she can imagine it before they come out their doors. Phillip, sixteen (oh God seventeen, she remembers that his birthday was coming up – there’s a brand new PS4 game wrapped up somewhere, still unopened) and realistic in all things, probably wont believe her. He and Gwen grew up the most when Dad died, and while Gwen threw herself wholeheartedly into her studies for a while ( _science_ , a thing that can s _ave_ and not always _destroy_ she reminds herself) he threw himself into reading. Math, English, even some science, things you can touch and feel and see and be entirely responsible for. Then Howard, her Howie, fourteen and going through puberty with a wary eye, was a skeptic the first time around but always secretly believed. He was the one that snuck down the hall with her on Christmas Eve to nibble the cookies so Simon would think that a fat red man somehow got into their fireplace-less home.

What Gwen gets, however, is two seconds of her middle brothers freckled face before he’s throwing himself at her as well, and tears running down Phillip’s face once she enters his view. She can’t see him very much in the brother-hug she’s enwrapped in but she can feel his shoulders, broadening every day, shake with sobs. He was always the tough one, Phillip. Buff and strong, the perfect all American child, blonde hair and blue eyes like his smart big sister. Gwen thinks, but she can’t remember the last time she saw him cry.

“I’m sorry,” she keeps saying, trying to hold onto them all at once, but failing miserably. “I’m so sorry.”

It’s not her fault though, is it?

It’s a lot of people’s fault. Peter’s fathers fault for experimenting on his blood and keeping it a secret, Curt Connors fault for not spreading the knowledge that risky ‘solutions’ can kill you, Harry Osborn’s genes fault for carrying a disease that slowly incapacitates you from the outside in and driving him to madness.

Peter’s fault, for loving a girl and wanting to tell his best friend, his only friend about her and how complicated it was.

Except it _wasn’t_.

He couldn’t have known. You can’t just look someone in the eyes and go _huh, they’ll probably wrongly assume my blood can heal them of this horrible disease that they have and when they go the dirty route to a cure they will go crazy and then try to_ (excuse her) _actually kill my girlfriend._

But Peter is _Peter_ , he is her Bug Boy, and her Bug Boy started fighting crime due to the guilt of saying one phrase that changed his life forever. He started saving people because secretly, in his heart of hearts, every person he gets out of harm’s way is him doing his best to stop other people from having their own Uncle Ben’s. He doesn’t tell his Aunt that he is Spider-Man even though they both know she knows because if he says it out loud then it’ll be real and she’ll worry even more than she does now. Peter takes his guilt and it sours into pain and longing that can never be fulfilled, the reason why they went from going steady to on again, off again, the reason why he sees her father in places he physically can’t be.

Oh God. In the darkness of her room Gwen leans her head against the wall and screams silently, pain radiating from every pore of her body. The sorrow and grief that _Oscorp_ has caused. Every scrap of it, a stab to the hearts of everyone she loves. Even Ren, her gorgeous strawberry blonde dog. She was wary about adopting her, no matter how much Cindy begged. She’d be too busy, she warned her roommate even as they walked out of the shelter, pet pedigree in hand. Gwen wouldn’t have time. Or, more accurately, Gwen fell in love with the dog whose eyes were just as warm and Bambi like as her ex-boyfriend, though that’s not the reason why they kept her.

She should’ve taken that offer at Stark Industries instead, biochem be damned. Just because it was still a fledgling division didn’t mean they weren’t just as good. But _no_ , Gwen just _had t_ o go to the place with the fancy equipment and the fancy publishes papers and what turned out to be a very big fancy operation that like to cover up the deaths of the employees they killed.

All of her trembles, she is sure, from her head to her toes, and the bed is too big and too empty. The _room_ is too big and too empty, and it belongs to a different girl. This girl, this Gwen, needs to adapt. Needs to survive. Needs to live, needs to _change_.

What she needs to do though, in all honesty, is call her boyfriend. Well her _something_ , at the very least. What do you call it when you love someone who loves you back but refuses to be with you? Whatever it is, that. Gwen needs to call her _that_ and explain to him that he was not, in fact, responsible for her death.

Oh dear. She wonders how that’s going to go.

Gwen Stacy ignores the feeling in her chest like her heart is bleeding out and lets her mind go blank, holding a piece of her blonde hair to the moonlight and squinting.

She really needs to get a haircut.


	3. Options.

Gwen spends her sleepless night making plans.

First, she has to see just how officially dead she is. Can she still use her Social Security number? Is her bank account still viable? She's sure that her Oxford scholarship is gone, but that doesn't worry her that much. All those opportunities seem small, now. Life can be short, way too short, and she thinks that for now she wants to spend it here. With her family, her city, and her Spider-Man.

She thinks that she catches maybe a hot thirty minutes of sleep before Simon bounds in to wake her up, bringing life into her room. It's a Thursday, she finds out, and none of the boys are going to school. They've been missing a lot of school recently, Helen reasons, so this one day couldn't hurt them. There's a full breakfast spread on the table as Gwen follows the tugging hand of her littlest brother, with waffles topped in whipped cream and strawberries, beautifully whipped eggs, sizzling bacon and grits. Her mom used to make meals like this when her father cracked a big case, or caught a particularly nasty criminal, smiling and showing George with food just how proud she was. It's weird to be celebrating Gwen's return to life, but she lets them have it. She knows they need it. 

They talk over the clinking of plates and the pouring of orange juice, of the upcoming fall dance and Howie's science project. They studiously avoid any talking of the funeral, or the mountains of casseroles wrapped in their refrigerator, or the four bouquets of fresh flowers on the windowsill. Helen always hated flowers. They spread pollen everywhere, and then they wilt and make the cat sneeze, she reasoned. Khan, said cat, did not agree or disagree. The fluffy sable coated female did not much care for Gwen when she was alive, preferring to adapt a cultured nonchalance at her presence, but all seems to be forgotten now. Even now, below the table, Khan wraps herself around Gwen's ankles, meowing for attention. Not one to resist, Gwen tears a piece of bacon off her plate and feeds it to Khan, the cat purring in welcome. Clearly, there's something to be said about cats and superstition.

"Mom, I need to ask you something."

Phillip, Howard, and Simon engage in a vicious game of Smash Bros in front of them, the two ladies curled up on the couch behind them. Gwen picks at the ill fitting long sleeved shirt she's wearing, unable to meet Helen's gaze. A memory tugs at her, and it's a little harder to breathe than it was before. It's Peter's shirt that she's wearing. She brought most of what she's kept from their relationship with her to the apartment with Cindy, but some of it had escaped her, obviously. She lifts it a little to her nose, and despite it's frequent washings, she could still smell him on it. Burning metal, velvet skin, the tangy touch of blood. She hears camera clicks in the back of her mind and then his voice, snarky and calculated. Gwen crinkles her nose, because where the fuck did  _that_ come from, but Helen places her hand on her knee and brings her back to the conversation.

"Yes, dear?"

"I know this weird to ask but, uhm." Gwen squints, tilting her head. "Just how dead am I?"

The question hangs in the air awkwardly for a moment but Helen knows what she means, having gone through it a mere two years before with her husband. "I have your certificate of death," she sighs, tracing a finger on the upholstery. "I had to have it to give you a funeral. Your bank account is still intact, so is your Social Security number. Columbia reimbursed me your semester fees. _Oscorp_ said they'd make an exception for you and started giving me a pension from your salary. I saw Cindy last week. She's trying to take your stuff out of your apartment but she told me she keeps crying so she can't finish the job." Helen's voice softens, giving Gwen a gentle smile. "She's a lovely girl. Technically you're still on the lease with her, so if you wanted to go back there you could. If you can convince her that you're alive and all." No matter what her voice is saying, Helen's face and eyes are saying a different story, begging her daughter to please stay here, stay with her, stay  _safe_. 

"So if I wanted to go out and get a job with people who didn't know me, I still could?" Gwen hedges, hope in her chest. If her identity is still hers, she can make a go of it. Try life again. She'll have to avoid social media though, avoid most of her old life. It'll be hard, but she can get through it. She can get through anything if she sets her mind to it, she's sure.

"You could. But oh Gwen can't you - won't you stay home? I know there's not much for you here but I'd - I'd feel so much better."

Helen reaches out to put her hand on Gwen's and Gwen pulls back. She doesn't mean to, but she knows how her mother works. If she gives her a little, she'll have to give her a lot, and Gwen can't promise that to her. Growing up Gwen had always been the perfect one who didn't get in trouble, who aced her tests and who all the parents liked. She never got hurt, and her relationship with her mom was more gentle and guiding, filled with information but not much hard parenting was needed. The day Howie broke his arm playing with his friends Gwen saw a different side of her. Helen transformed into a helicopter, fussing mom who had to know where and when Howard was at all times. It took her forever to break out of it and Gwen didn't want that for her future. 

"I know Mom. I'll stay, for a few days, but I can't forever. I've been given a second chance and I just - I can't waste it being afraid of bee stings and cracked sidewalks."

Helen sighs, but let's it go, knowing a lost battle when she sees it. Death hasn't changed her daughter much, that much she knows for sure. "Alright."

"Could you do one thing for me though?" Gwen asks, smiling a little.

"Of course."

Gwen lifted a piece of her hair. "Can you cut this shorter for me?"

Within a short period of time Gwen's sitting on a chair in the kitchen with a towel wrapped around her shoulders. Helen spritzes her hair quickly and goes to her bathroom, returning quickly with a pair of scissors. "How short?" she asks, touching a soft hand to the crown of her head. Gwen places a finger about a half an inch from her shoulder and Helen hums in agreement, combing it down. 

"Simon?"

He pauses the game and turns, still kicking his feet in the air. "Yeah?"

Gwen clears her throat, struck once again by the innocence still on his face. She hopes that in this mess of a situation she doesn't mess him up too much. It'll be too hard to explain in the parent teacher conference why Simon suddenly believes in zombies, and when asked to show proof brings in his older sister. "Can you give me my phone?" She shoots a glance up at Helen, awkwardness on her face. "I mean, if you still have it."

Tears come to Helen's eyes as her hands slow. "I paid your bill last week." She admits quietly, and disappears down the hall returning with the small electronic object in her hand. It looks no worse for the wear, and when Gwen powers it up it has a full battery. "I kept calling just to hear your voicemail." Helen finishes, going back to Gwens hair.

Oh. That explains the 43 missed voicemails notification at the top of the screen. There are her junk emails, subscriptions to Office Depot and Hollisters clogging her inbox, and Facebook notifications from people posting on her wall about how much they'll miss her. Half of those people Gwen can't remember saying more than a hundred words to, and it makes her feel sick that they are painting themselves as sympathy figures by utilizing her death.

Part of her wants to angrily post that they can go stuff their condolences where the sun don't shine but she knows that would be a stupid idea. Whatever they had been doing with her body, whatever experiments they'd pulled, whatever brought her, well,  _back_ , there was one huge company behind it all. A huge company with an asylum called Ravencroft designed to sweep all their dirty business into, and a company with the means to destroy any evidence of their mistakes.

Gwen Stacy would  _not_ be one of those mistakes.

She checks her text messages, and finds a few from Cindy on the day of (what's she supposed to call it anyway? there should be a word to encompass the whole 'day i died but i came back so not really' situation), but what stands out is the one message from Peter.

 _'I'm sorry'_ Is all it says, and it's dated to three weeks ago, the day after the clock tower if she has the dates right.

Her heart cracks open in her chest, just a little bit, and Gwen almost feels like she's dying all over again.

(it did happen, anyway. might as well joke about it.)

The blonde girl dials him with shaky fingers on the touchpan, messing up twice before successfully keying in the numbers that she's had memorized for more than a year. At first Gwen hears nothing, just the jeers and pixelated sounds of Princess Peach whupping Charizard's butt with Kirby fluttering in the background and the snip-snip of her mothers scissors. Then the ringing abruptly stops.

" _Mrs. Stacy?"_

Peter's voice is weary, tired, and altogether too pained even over the phone. Gwen can picture him in her mind, probably patching himself back up after last nights patrol, medical tape caught in his teeth as he tries to fix his sore ankle. The boy may be radioactively gifted but he still bleeds.

" _Mrs. Stacy I love talking to you, but I thought we said it was better for you to use your house phone. This one is just, um."_ He pauses, and there's a tremor of a whimper tangling in his voice when he speaks again. " _It's too painful. To see on my screen."_

Gwen's mouth opens and closes, but no words come out. Helen removes the towel and returns with a blowdryer, and she uses the loud noise as an excuse to hang up. 

How does she say it? How can she prove it?

It feels like a breakup in a way - you don't want to do it over text because it's too impersonal, a phonecall means you care but not enough, a video call indicates you're just too chicken to do it in person and need the safety of an 'end call' button, and a voicemail is downright cruel. Gwen's not breaking up with him of course (she already did that the night of graduation but - them on the bridge, were they starting up again? they'd said I love you, and he called her his path, which mended her heart in more ways than one. at the end of the day she doesn't know for sure, because they'd never gotten the time to figure it out).

"There you go sweetie." Helen says, kissing the side of her head, and goes to put the supplies away. Gwen's fingers go up to touch the ends of her hair, holding up a mirror to see. It's shorter than she's ever had it in her life, barring a short tomboy phase in second grade, and it doesn't look like the old her. Her bangs curve across her forehead as always, but the shorter do feels braver, more confident. 

She decides she likes it.

 

* * *

 

Later on Gwen asks Helen where are the boxes of stuff that Cindy's brought over so far, and if they have any clothes in them, so Helen leads her to the small pyramid in the corner of Gwen's old room. Top boxes are underwear, bottom ones were clothing, so Gwen goes digging and comes up with a forest green sweater and a flared denim skirt. The jean jacket that matches it is found in a box pushed at the back and the blonde girl pulls them all on. The slide of white knee highs against her skin is as familiar as her own face and bolsters her spirit, no matter how stupid it is to be comforted by a pair of socks. Butter soft caramel boots go on next, and after a second of hesitation so do black sunglasses. Gwen highly doubts anyone is looking for her face (people tend to stop seeing you after you die) and that she'd see anyone she recognized, but it couldn't hurt to try.

Helen doesn't want to open the door for her to let her leave, but she can't really stop her, and after kissing all three of her brothers on the cheek Gwen takes off. It's about dusk now, and people are flooding out of their workplaces, giving her enough bustle to ease the tension riding her shoulders. Little things keep catching her attention and freaking her out though, someone using a knife to slather butter on bread at a cafe she passes, the phone conversation of a businessman she passed more than ten minutes ago, and the rapid beating of the hearts of a group of children who pass her, screaming with joy as they race.

It's about the time that she hears the freaking  _heartbeats of children_ (that sounds both cannibalistic and pedophilic - okay, she's disgusted with herself now) that Gwen realizes that perhaps she didn't come out of that underground lab entirely unscathed. Of course there are tiny puncture marks near her chest and in the insides of her elbows, but other than that Gwen couldn't find any other marks on her. She wishes she had read more of the files at home, but her brain had been too fried at six in the morning. Sleepless or nah, it was impossible to understand at that time of the night.

She's taking the subway to Queens from Midtown when another passenger catches her attention out of the myriad of new things Gwen can suddenly interpret. The woman stands out to Gwen, because amongst the young mother shushing her baby to sleep, the rattles of pills in the pockets of an altogether too wide eyed man, and the lecherous stare of an old drunkard among others, she seems entirely disinterested by the world around her. Her eyes do not dart ashamedly between her fellow passengers in sheepish curiosity, but stare annoyed and unseeing at the windows and the flashing of the brick walls outside.

The stranger takes a sip from a brown paper bag, and Gwen's apparently new and improved sense of smell can tell it's liquor. Whiskey, maybe, or rum. Her leather jacket is worn but somehow aggressive looking and her ripped jean clad legs are spread wise without much care. Full lips pull into a sneer that screams  _fuck off_ when her green eyes make contact with Gwen's, and she runs a hand through her black hair with fingerless gloves of the same color.

"What're you looking at blondie?" the woman grates sarcastically, raising one raven brow. "Never seen a pissed off person before?"

Gwen doesn't know whether to engage or not. Common sense and whatever new shit that the stuff running through her veins is giving her tells her not to, but this freshly not dead Gwen opens her mouth anyway. "No, I have. Just wondering what was in the bag." To her defense, it's a non aggravating question.

The woman's shoulder fall a half a notch and she holds it out to Gwen as a half-assed offering. "Gin. Want a sip?"

Normally, Gwen would never, but what she's going to do terrifies the living daylights out of her, so liquid courage cant hurt. She takes a healthy swig and makes a face, hating the burn as it rushes down her throat. "Thanks. I needed that."

The woman snorts. "Don't we all. Here." She fishes in the pocket of her jacket and swears before going through all the other ones in her person. She finds what she's looking for in the back pocket of her jeans and drags out a business card. "You look like you're trying not to be seen. If you're in trouble, or need help, try to fix it your own damn self. Then call me." The subway comes to a halt with the terrible screeching noise that New Yorkers have as birdsong and the stranger lurches up, walking surprisingly steadily out the open door. Gwen squints up at the stop name because she's morbidly curious (it's Clinton, but she doesn't understand why they don't just label it Hell's Kitchen like everyone else does) and then flips the business card over in her hands.

It's moderately filthy on the ends, and written sloppily by hand. Coffee stains the corner and the smell of more alcohol wafts up from the paper.  _Jessica Jones_ , Gwen reads,  _Alias Investigations_. She doesn't know how a P.I. could help with her situation, but it couldn't hurt to save the card anyway, so she folds it in half and carefully sticks it in her boot. Queens is the next stop and she gets off with a heavy heart, her feet leading her where she's afraid to go. Peter and Aunt May live in the kind of rowhouses where there's no place to hide like she really wants to and she mourns the lack of cover bitterly.

Luck is on her side (or against her, Gwen's not quite sure) when Aunt May herself opens the front door. She's got a set of keys clutched in her hand and what looks like a laundry list in the other, so it's not hard for Gwen to guess where she's headed. The older woman gets in the drivers side of an old pickup and slowly pulls away, Frank Sinatra crooning out the open window. A surge of affection hits Gwen for the older lady, because it couldn't have been easy to keep raising Peter on her own. Aunt May was a goddamned saint, and Gwen would smack anyone who claimed otherwise.

She doesn't know what drives her feet to climb the stairs to Peter's doorstep but fear is for sure what stops her from ringing the doorbell. She shakily takes her sunglasses off and turns them in her hand, but is surprised when her tight grip on them crushes the plastic. The blonde girl doesn't have the time to truly investigate if that was her or just shitty production quality because a deep voice goes "Even if you don't ring the doorbell,  _I can tell someone's there_ , you know." and Gwen's frozen to the ground as the front door swings open.

He's just as handsome as she remembers, Gwen thinks absently, with his muscled shoulders and chocolate brown eyes and frothy brunette hair, but the unfathomable pain in his eyes was not there the last time she saw him. She feels guilty again, just seeing the tightness around the corners of his mouth and the raggedy state of the black t-shirt Peter's wearing. He's not taking care of itself, and it shows. There's medical wraps on his right hand and a scratch on his jaw, and she aches to touch him everywhere and assess just how badly he got hurt.

All these thoughts stop abruptly when Peter's expression morphs from disinterest to thunderous rage the moment he lays eyes on her. His hand shoots forward, quick as a whip, to drag her by her shirt into the house. Gwen stumbles on the doorstep and almost doesn't get out of the way in time for the door to slam shut behind her, before she's suddenly being pressed very roughly into it.

"I don't know who you  _are_ ," Peter hisses, eyes shooting fire as he moves closer, hands fisted in her shirt and holding her off the ground. "Or  _what_ you are, or just exactly what kind of sick sack of shit you are to take on the body, the visage of a  _dead_ girl, but just know that I am going to  _beat. your. ass.,_ to kingdom come and back." His voice doesn't sound vulnerable like it did on the phone but enraged, though he can't quite erase the pain. It's still there, thrumming under the anger and the violence, and stabs her straight in the heart.

Gwen knows he's Spider-Man, and Spider-Man doesn't kill, but Spider-Man has never been presented with the situation of a supervillian coming to his home looking like his girlfriend who just died. For the first time, Gwen is genuinely scared,  _terrified_ even, of the boy who made her a lump chocolate cupcake for her birthday and kissed every inch of her body just because it made her smile.

She hopes he figures it out before he kills her, because she really doesn't think she'll come back this time.


	4. Proving.

Give him the Lizard back.

He'll take the Lizard, poisoned Harry, and Electro over this, this  _monstrosity_ that's in front of him. 

God it even  _smells_ like her. Her favorite Victoria Secrets perfume, the laundry detergent her mom uses, and the slight sting of cleaning solution from the lab. Her -  _it's_ he has to remember,  _it's_ \- eyes are wide and grey green and terrified, and that pretty pink mouth is slightly open in shock. It's hair is shorter than Gwen's, but if it had been Gwen, his Gwen (God he misses her so much) he would've thought it looked cute. He would've tugged on the ends and nuzzled her neck and told her it's all the better to kiss her neck with and she would have giggled and called him a sappy Bug Boy but unashamedly pulled him closer.

If they had been together.

If they hadn't, he wouldn't have said anything, just maybe brushed by her in the hall and murmured that 'you look beautiful'.

Absently, the part of Peter's mind not consumed with rage wonders if this _thing_ tastes like her, thinks like her, laughs like her too, but he instantly hates himself for it. This monster, this abomination in front of him, was not his Gwen. It couldn't be. He knew it wasn't because his Gwen she'd - she'd _died_.

She _died_ , in his arms, on the cold floor of that clock tower, and it was all his fault. His fault that her life was stolen from her with one sickening crack against the concrete, his fault that she never get to live out the spectacular potential that someone as brilliant and wonderful as she was had in front of her, his _fault_ that his alter ego was the cause of everything he'd fought so hard to prevent.

Aunt May had said ' _What a pretty girl_ ' the first time she'd seen Gwen and she was right. Gwen was pretty, and brilliant, and every time you interacted with her you got a rush of sunshine but then Peter came along and she went from a pretty girl to a pretty dead girl, and there was no one to blame but himself.

All his fault that her heart would never beat again and his was broken in half.

 

* * *

 

Gwen didn't know her heart could beat so fast.

She's frozen, petrified in this moment with wood pressed into her back and hands that once touched her as if a slight move could break her fisted in her jacket so hard the knuckles were turning white. His hair is sticking up rakishly in that new haircut he got right before graduation and the part of her that is ignoring how much of an emergency this is thinks he's really hot and wants to have hot dirty sex on everything, and this is soooo not the time for that. Peter's hot when he's passionate about something, so sue her.

Okay Stacy. You've let this go on enough. Grow the same pair of balls that bolstered you enough to hit a freaking 20 feet tall hybrid lizard with a soccer trophy and made turning a key in the face of electrocution easy to do (honestly she'd nearly shit her pants that was so scary but still).

 _You're stronger than an ex boyfriend, Stacy,_ the blonde girl reminds herself, and sets out scouring her brain for something, anything to at least throw Peter off enough for a long enough to explain. And because Gwen is the valedictorian of her class, recipient of a prestigious Oxford scholarship, and hosting a current 4.0 at Columbia University, the name Rodrigo is what she pulls out.

"Rodrigo," she blurts, soft at first and then louder, closing her hands on Peter's forearms. "Rodrigo Guevera!"

Peter's face morphs from seething rage to a slightly less angry _whatthefuck?_ in remarkably quick fashion. "What?"

"Rodrigo Guevera." Gwen repeats, relief flooding her as she feels his grip loosen. "You snuck into the _Oscorp_ tour for future interns and stole Rodrigo Guevera's name tag. They dragged him away screaming and I had to call him two days later to apologize for the misunderstanding."

His expression clears a bit, but his eyes don't change. He loosens enough to drop her to the ground and takes a step back, confusion wrinkling his brow. "You couldn't know that." Peter whispers to her, hurt mixing with the anger in his tone. "You can't."

It's an imperfect solution, but it's the only one she's got and Gwen's desperate. If she wants to convince Peter that this is really her, that this is real, that she is real she's got to prove it. She's not her mom, she's not a big city wealthy lawyer with hundreds of cases under her belt, so this is the best idea she's got. Little moments between them like that, whispered in the crooks of necks and told over dates on the tops of buildings, is how she's going to prove that it's her.

"You were on the way to my house when you got caught by a door to door evangelist." She wraps her arms around herself, searching his eyes with her own very grey green ones. "You stood there for almost an hour in your spandex, too polite to make them stop. You were so late I nearly had an apoplexy by the time you got my window but I was crying tears of laughter when you told me what happened." Real tears, sad ones, threaten to come to her eyes but Gwen holds them back, throat constricting. Peter's arms hang by his sides loose and unsure, but there's too many emotions on his face for Gwen to interpret so she presses on.

"The first time we broke up after my dad's funeral you still came over and helped Phillip string Christmas lights in the apartment. My mom left the room to cry and you stayed almost until midnight to make sure we didn't need anything." The memories swell and fill her head and her heart and Gwen almost aches to go back to that time when things were a little simpler. Still complicated, still impossible, but a little more livable. Here and now though, Gwen takes a step back and leans against the door herself. Her jean jacket doesn't not feel like enough armor against this conversation and the slightly ridiculous part of her brain almost wishes for an actual shield.

It wouldn't save her regardless. Watching the news she's seen Spider-Man bend metal and stop cars and be all around the superhero he was, so a circular piece of metal wouldn't really stop him if Peter was determined. It was a stupid thought anyway.

"Your guilty pleasure is a triple shot frappuccino from Starbucks even though you always feel like really basic when you do. You plan on naming your first kid Ben, if you ever have any. You and Flash played HALO together every Saturday of senior year. Your first kiss was Mary Jane Watson in seventh grade but you've assured me time and time again that I am a much better kisser." Gwen's voice is going faster and faster and words stumble over each other in her mouth.  "You keep a piece of the rubble from the Battle of New York to remind yourself to work harder to save more people. You-"

"Stop. Just - just stop."

Gwen shuts her mouth immediately, fixing her wide gaze on Peter as he comes closer to her. There's wonder in his eyes, but disbelief too, a tinge of horror and a relief so vast it almost drowns her. His hand comes up and hesitantly, terrifyingly touches her cheek and Gwen can't help but lean in.

"You can't be here," he says quietly, and Gwen stands on her tiptoe a bit to press his forehead against hers.

"I shouldn't be here." She agrees, but it doesn't stop her from sliding a hand up the hem of his shirt to touch his stomach. Peter's skin is warm and the comforting ripple of his abs and his scars under her fingertips grounds her in the moment between them.

"If you're a dream then this is both the best dream and the worst goddamned nightmare I've ever had." Peter groans out, cupping her face. "Its too much pain to wake up and have you not be here, not be _alive_ . I killed you, oh God Gwen I _killed_ you just as surely as if I had dropped you myself. I'll never forgive myself. I cant ever forgive myself. How are you alive? You're warm and," he runs his nose along her hairline and a noise that sounds embarrassingly like a keen escapes her throat. "And alive, and I can hear your heartbeat and feel the warmth of your breath against my skin."

"I woke up in a basement lab in  _Oscorp_ ," Gwen supplies breathlessly, pulling him against her (he feels so good  _so good_ ) "they experimented on me and there was something with electricity and I stole the samples they took from me and the files are in my room-"

"How long?" Peter slips a finger under neckline of her sweater and she clutches at the black fabric of his t-shirt.

"A day. Maybe two. I didn't get a lot of sleep so I'm not quite sure and I'm pretty sure it's a Thursday-"

"Wait, stop." he interrupts her again and physically seems to make himself step back, his eyes taking on the scientific gaze that Gwen so often saw in her mirror. "I want to believe this, Gwen I do, but how am I sure you're not just a really well trained actor? Cultivated by  _Oscorp_ or Ravencroft, hell there's rumors going around the hero community about a guy who can shapeshift into anyone. Tell me something that no one else would know. That no amount of spying and research can give me the answer too." Peter features shift and she sees him get an idea, his hands holding both of hers. "Tell me the first time I said I love you."

All the tension eases out of Gwen's shoulders and a smile, a real one, makes its way onto her face for perhaps the first time since she woke up.

"It was the night before Valentines Day." The words are soft from affection as they escape her mouth, and Peter's grip tightens on her, coming close like he was before. "Technically Valentines Day, if you're going by time of night. We got Mexican takeout at my favorite place and you swung us the top the of the Chrysler building. You made us a web hammock and we bundled up in blankets and you got queso on my skirt." Gwen laughs a little, at the remembering and the lines around Peter's mouth finally relax. "We couldn't stop laughing and then out of nowhere you looked at me and smiled, and you had a scratch over your eyebrow that made you look all rakishly handsome, and you pressed a kiss to my mouth and said 'You know I love you right?'"

Peter sighs and it's a gust of released tension that Gwen knows he's been carrying since she was lowered into the ground. He kisses her forehead and her hands go up, diving in that soft messy, brunette hair. She didn't think his moles and freckles had ever looked so good before. "And you said 'I had an inkling, Bug Boy', and poked me in the cheek." Peter finishes, the words clouding out around her ear. "Oh Gwen. Oh my Gwen, my Gwen, my wonderful, amazing Gwendolyn Stacy I have missed you so  _much_."

A balloon in Gwen's ribcage loosens and floats away when he tilts his head down and she meets his mouth eagerly, lips pliant and needy under his. In all reality it had only been a month, maybe, since they made out on a bridge top and made promises they didn't know they couldn't keep, but emotionally it had been a lifetime. He presses her against the door in passion this time instead of fear and anger, and Gwen doesn't ever want it to stop. She licks at his teeth and he bites her lip in return and Peter's hand draws down her thigh to the soft spot behind her knee and draws it against his leg, the two of them flush against each other. His taste changes a little and Gwen's too busy making out with him to care until she realizes it's the tang of salt on her tongue.

 

* * *

 

Eventually they pull themselves together and end up on the floor of Peter's room. 

Gwen's legs are stretched out in front of her and Peter's slowly taking off her thigh highs, boots discarded in a corner. His fingertips catch on her skin as usual, the little spider hairs tickling if she concentrates hard enough. She hasn't seen it in a while, so she takes stock. The  _Rear Window_ poster is still on the wall, and Einstein still sticks his tongue out at her from the bathroom door, little gadgets are sprinkled all over his desk. His bed still doesn't have a headboard, and books are sprawled all over the floor in places they really shouldn't be.

Two things stick out to Gwen almost immediately. Firstly, the sheer amount of pictures of  _her_ on the walls. Her laughing, her posing in his sweater, her and him fooling around. All the Polaroids from their relationship, and then finally the framed photo of them cuddling on his desk. The second thing is the whoppingly large police board. Peter's parents are on it, and tons of documents from  _Oscorp,_ S.H.I.E.L.D., Stark Industries, and Rand Enterprises are all connected by bright red electrical tape.

"Wow," she breathes, and Peter tears himself away from his Gwen-Stacy-leg-worship to take a glance at it.

"Yeah, I've been uh - I've been busy." He blushes a little and she scoots forward, kissing his cheek. Peter's got his fathers glasses on (he can see perfectly now, but they make him nostalgic so he got the lenses replaces with glass like the hipster he truly is) and he looks smart and sexy in a lot of ways that light Gwen up inside.

"Were you able to make any conclusions? You know, assuming you had a hypothesis."

Peter leans back a little but doesn't let go of her leg. "My father was a bit of a crooked scientist. Good heart, but didn't go about it the right way.  _Oscorp_ is evil as shit, but we knew that. Rand Industries has some shady people in charge, but this new guy, Danny Rand, doesn't seem like it's all bad. Stark Industries is still the most profitable company of all them has expanded it's Research and Development program, mostly because, I'm sure, they got Bruce Banner on staff. The mans a genius." Gwen can't help but agree. She wrote her submission to the Oxford board on his work on biochemistry and was once lucky enough to hear the man speak. She had a huge scientist crush on a guy. "Also, every member of the Avengers has worked with S.H.I.E.L.D. in some capacity or another. When Black Widow made all of the files public it changed the perception on a lot of things."

Gwen lets herself down from her elbows and lies down fully on her back, the gentle blonde curls splaying on the floor like sunrays from her head. All this new information was too much, to heavy. She didn't know how Peter did it, being a superhero and a college student and a good son all at once. She couldn't even imagine. A shadow falls over her face and she blinks her grey green eyes open, smiling at the sight of a bespectacled Peter grinning at her like she's all that's good in the world.

"Hi, Bug Boy." she whispers and he chuckles, dropping down from his fingers to kiss her on the mouth.

"Hello, my miraculous Gwen Stacy." Peter tells her and Gwen's heart swells just at the sound. He rolls a bit and lies down next to her, one arm under his head. She turns willingly to his side and rests her head on his heart, the sound of it beating thrumming through her whole body. 

"I feel different."

The words enter the calm and happy atmosphere and hang there, waiting to be addressed. Peter is silent for a moment, then opens his mouth. "Different how? Different other than you're undead? Other than the fact that I have a zombie girlfriend?" She smacks his chest gently and giggles but he actually winces, training brown eyes on her. "Wow, okay. You're for sure stronger than before. It actually hurt that time."

Gwen thinks, trying to remember exactly what had been standing out to her since her return from 'the beyond'. "I can smell everything," she starts slowly, sliding a hand under his shirt to trace nonsense on his chest. "My hand sticks a little to doorframes and I feel more balanced than I was before, I don't know. I haven't really had time to test it."

Peter sits up abruptly and Gwen falls off his chest, immediately a bit disgruntled. Wood floors simply do not compare to cuddling on Peter Parker, thats for sure. "They experimented on you in that lab right?"

"Yeah," Gwen answers carefully. "I took most of what I could of their files with me, but I haven't had the time to really look at them yet. I was with my family, and then - well, I had to find you."

"Okay then. You won't have to go through it alone." He flips himself into an upright position and Gwen gets a little dumbstruck at the sight of it (any flashes of Spider-Man that she gets to see in civilian, shy, cuddling Peter Parker is a bonus and turns Gwen on like almost nothing else) but pulls herself together. Something about being with Peter feels different now too. She can't stop touching him or wanting to fuck him into next Tuesday at inopportune times and it's not like she didn't want to do that beforebut not to quite this _hormones on fire skin is burning_ feeling that she's trying very hard not to thing about. If it is a side effect she's not sure how she feels about it.

"C'mon, Gwen." He holds out a hand to her, giving her the most Peter-y smile she ever did see. She loves it, just like she loves him. "Lets find out what they did to you."

Of course, she takes her hand. She wasn't really his path, not honestly - they were just intertwined on one together, and always would be.

Gwen wonders if the stuff inside of her has anything to do with what happened to Harry, but considering the lack of side effects she'd shown so far she doubted it.

Either way, God she hoped not. Green really wasn't her color.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to try and put a character in this that wasn't Peter and Gwen but it ended up dragging on too long. They deserved all of it, considering their relationship and how emotions heavy their re-meeting was going to be. Don't worry, I'll be slowly bringing the rest of the MCU into it as soon as I can.
> 
> I'm choosing to count most everything up to the second Avengers but I'm going to mess with some of the facts because I'm not a huge fan (for example no stupid BrucexNatasha romance, Clint doesn't have a secret family). And I'm going to add Defenders, because I'm a huge sucker for all of my Marvel babies. Because this is my fic I will be adding Marvel characters that aren't in the movies or TV, but I hope to make their addition seamless to the fic. Hope you like it!


	5. Research.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> small sidenote, TODAY I FOUND OUT THAT PETER PARKER KNOCKED OUT A T-REX WITH ONE SWING OF HIS MIGHT SPIDER FIST. HOLY SHIT, MARVEL. i'll post the link at the end if anyones interested.

They try to take the folders from Gwen's apartment and leave quietly, but Helen will have nothing to do with it. Peter ends up staying for dinner and then the night after he phones Aunt May that he's staying at a friends. Its not his best excuse, historically, but Aunt May didn't ask any questions. She just sounded relieved he was being social again.

This issue of telling people ( _oh yeah ha ha you remember that funeral we had? well turns out she's still alive! surprise! are condolences returnable?_ ) is getting larger and larger with every day that goes by.

"Hey. Hey Gwen." Peter nudges Gwen's cheek with his nose and she makes a face, the fringe on his brown hair tickling her forehead. When they were dating in high school Peter never spent the night, the both of them always aware of Helen's overbearing eye. Gwen didn't sleep over at home very often after she went off to college, so whatever she and Peter were doing (which wasn't much - that break up at graduation severed them for a good while) wasn't subject to Helen's approval.

Now, with her daughter freshly back from the dead and all, Helen didn't give less of a shit what she wanted to do. Gwen could probably tell her she was going to be cuddling the Hulk and Helen would say "okay, be careful dear" and let it go. Maybe things would change in the future, but for now, Gwen wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Peter had spent almost the entire night by her side. He'd left around midnight to get a quick patrol in and slipped back at five AM, the ridges of his gloves sticky on her cheek when he kissed her upon his return. It was around nine now, and Gwen did not want to wake up. She wanted to stay here, thank you very much, with the muscled, outrageously attractive arms of her boyfriend wrapped around her and the comfort of knowing that as long as he was there she was safe.

"Gwen," Peter tries again, loosening his grip on her even as she tries to keep her own. Her hands dig into his forearms so tightly he winces, urgency now in his tone. "Gwen. Wake up!" Her eyes open slowly, finally coming to terms with whats happening, and she frowns, letting loose a sigh.

"Yeah? What - what time is it?"

"About nine." He leans back and lets her sit up and stretch, the bottom of his old shirt riding up to expose the flat plane of her stomach. Peter, having no shame and not needing it, trains his eyes on that slip of skin and raises his gaze along her body, finding her impossibly cute and sexy with a case of bedhead and sleep mouth. The secret superhero leans in to kiss her anyway and their tongues tangle, her bare legs moving to straddle his sloped hips and his hands gliding beneath her shirt. They makeout for a solid five minutes before Peter pulls away, incredibly reluctantly. "That doesn't feel the same way it used to," he tells her, and Gwen nods, agreeing.

"There's a - an ache, I guess. When you're around and I'm not touching you skin to skin. Like a heat, a some sort of thing that draws me to you. God I couldn't keep my hands off you before because you're  _hot_ and I  _love you_ and you're the only person I know that makes mechanical engineering seem sexy, but now - oh come off it Parker." Peter's smirking with self satisfaction and Gwen can't help but roll her eyes. The twenty year old was rather sheepish and bashful and, as far as she was concerned, adorable as all hell as heart, but he had a mischievous streak. All that smack talk he laid on criminals came from somewhere, you know.

" _Any_ way." Gwen continues, flicking her hair over her shoulder, the difference in weight still a little strange. "You know what I mean. Whatever it is they put in me, it feels drawn to you. It's a good thing we're dating, I suppose, otherwise this would be really awkward."

"A very good thing." Peter agrees, and sits up quickly, lifting her from his waist as if she weighed no more than a feather. There's a rush of warmth to her crotch at the movement and Gwen closes her eyes, willing her hormones to calm down because so help her her boyfriend is a  _superhero_ and she doesn't think her vibrator has enough batteries to make up the difference. Speaking of vibrators...

"We need to go to my apartment," The blonde tells Peter, pulling on a pair of skinny jeans. He tosses her a bra from her drawer and she snatches it out of the air, staring at it in shock for a moment. Gwen really has never been the best at hand-eye coordination. 

Peter raises a brow from his position against her dresser (he slept in his jeans and t-shirt and looks wonderfully sleep mussed and extremely fuckable  _goddammit she has to get her hormones under control_ ) and throws her an earring to test it. Gwen catches that too, and the matching earring, and her mascara wand before they can accurately assume that she's gotten way better at reaction times. "Why your apartment?" Peter asks, writing down a note of the development in his phone.

"My laptops there and hopefully the password for  _Oscorp_ still works. Plus, it's a Friday, and Cindy'll go straight from classes to her girlfriend's place. I doubt her routine has changed much even though, you know, her roommate kind of died." Gwen winces but doesn't pause as she tugs on the cream colored tank-top. "Besides we won't get anything done if we stay here. You know we wont."

"Well yeah, but still. What if Cindy comes home early? She likes to do that sometimes at the most inopportune moments. It's like she has a Spidey-Sense for when she's the least wanted."

"Spidey-sense?" Gwen looks up at him as she pulls on black flats, brow wrinkling.

Peter shrugs, hands absently twirling one of his web shooters. "It's this thing that heightens my awareness. I can see bullets, sort of, and I know when someone's creeping up on me, or where a punch is coming from. It makes me hyper alert to a degree." He laughs, leaning his head back, eyes crinkling merrily. "The day after my spider bite I could here a bird feeding it's hatchlings from a block away. Took me a while to figure out how to harness it."

Gwen pauses for a moment, and closes her eyes, listening. She can hear her brothers in the next room. Howie and Simon are playing on their Nintendo DS's, Pokemon by the sound of it, and her mother is tapping on her laptop in the bedroom. Phillip is...she doesn't piece it together at first, a bit of moaning and a sort of squelching and  _oh God._ The blonde shudders. She's never going to try to listen in on Phillip again, that's for sure. "I understand. I feel it to, but nowhere near that strong."

"I should expect not." Peter's eyes are amused, but he doesn't ask about her shudder. He probably hears it too and just isn't saying anything, poor thing. "The spider that bit me went rogue in my room for a couple of days before Uncle Ben stepped on it, so it's long gone. Plus, who's to say it's spider venom that they put into you?"

She glares at him. "I have terrific hand eye coordination, my hands are starting to stick to things, I can hear my brother well,  _you know,_ and I'm stronger than I used to be. Plus I know for sure that they got rid of all of the rats and lizards after the Dr. Connors incident, so it's a logical conclusion, Bug Boy.  _Also_ ," Gwen narrows her eyes, placing her hands on her hips. "What did you mean by 'Cindy likes to come home early'? You've never even met her."

At least the boy's got the sense to blush. He stops twiddling with his web shooters and stick his hands in his pockets, suddenly finding her bare wooden floor very interesting. "I cased your apartment right after you moved in," Peter mumbles, running a hand through his hair. "I had to make sure you'd be safe, so I always swung by during patrols. You keep your windows open sometimes like, a lot - you may want to close that, because perverts can look straight in there."

Horrified. That's the only emotion she can feel right now because she knows  _exactly_ what moment he's talking about. Gwen had settled in for a night of, she was sure, me-time, and she'd been in the middle of very vocal vibrating me-time when Cindy burst in the door, talking excitedly about the new article she was writing for the Columbia paper. There was a lot of shrieking and 'OH MY GOD's but it took Gwen a solid two weeks to confidently look Cindy in the eye again.

"Perverts like you?" She scathingly offers, throwing a pillow from her chair at him viciously. He catches it easily and tosses it back onto her bed. Peter looks like a little boy with his hand caught in the cookie jar, but a lot less sorry, a hand over his mouth but a cheeky grin behind it.

"I left immediately." He promises. "All in all though, she seems like a nice person." Peter says hastily, trying to change the subject.

Gwen's still seething a little, but she lets it go. It came from a good place - hell everything Peter  _does_ concerning her comes from a good place - but as usual, got a bit muddled when he tries to see it through. "She is a wonderful person. But I did die on her, and she's super flighty. A good excuse, but still." They leave her room and go through the hallway, holding hands. She grabs an apple and slips it into her purse, large black sunglasses (a new staple of her wardrobe, regrettably) on her nose. "We'll have to cross our fingers and hope for the best."

Peter, being the absolute dumbass that he is, actually pulls his hand from her grip to cross his two fingers, grinning doofily.

She rolls her eyes. "You're such a nerd." Gwen says exasperatingly, and he shrugs. She had been right in the beginning, when he'd kissed the living daylights out of her and then jumped off the roof. Gwen was in trouble, but God staying out of it just didn't feel right anymore. Gwen loves him in ways she didn't know you even  _could_ love someone and she knows Peter feels the same.

"Well you love me, so who's the nerd now?"

"You. Always you."

Gwen still has to give him a little bit of shit, though. It's only fair. 

 

* * *

 

A young man lays back on a cot, the room dark and dingy. The single window streams moonlight onto the floor and it glints off the flinty blues of his eyes, the crazy shining in them scarier than any weapon. Green veins climb up the side of a neck vibrating with throaty singing, and hands tremble as the toss a crudely made ball of rags into the air.

"Oh,  _Harry_." A females voice croons, gloves with long black claws unscrewing the window frame. "It pains me to see you like this. All insane and lonely. Makes a girls heart cry."

Harry Osborn looks up at the woman nearly preening in the window sill, one of her long legs dangling into his cell, and stops his horribly executed rendition of Billy Joel's 'Piano Man'. "Felicia, you'd need to have a heart to cry." His actual is full of bite, the sardonic humor he'd developed in jail not wasted on the laughing thief. He was still thin, the orange of Ravencroft's uniform washing his already pallid skin out, the rancid color ill fitting and doing him no favors. Harry's voice was rough before his forced incarceration and constant talking to himself with little water had only emphasized that aspect of his tone.

He knows his visitor, though. She'd started dropping by his cell shortly after he'd been shoved so unceremoniously into Ravencroft, and served as the one few bright spot of Harry's nights (bright being a negligible term). They were sort of friends, you'd might say. Employer turned positive acquaintances, when she was in the mood. Besides, Harry would never turn her away.

If nothing else, she was awfully nice to look at.

The woman was lithe and curvy, tall for a female but wore the height well. Thick luxurious white hair hung to her waist in silky Pantene-commercial-worthy curls and faux hair of the same color flowing from the shiny black fabric of her costume at her forearms and calves. More fur lined the deep v of her outfit, showcasing a sumptuous bosom, and deep red, nearly purple lipstick stood out against a feline smile. A black, angular mask completed the look and made the thief's dark blue eyes stand out against her already nearly porcelain skin. She was all at once gorgeous, sexy, and untouchable, like a rare diamond.

She was the Black Cat, also known as Felicia Hardy, and she came her to gloat.

"He's devastated, you know." Felicia sharpens the pointed tips of her claws against each other, her back against the wall of the windowsill. "Spider-Man doesn't patrol as often as he used to. I nearly miss his stupid jokes, what with the seriousness I get from Captain America and the flat no nonsense of Luke Cage." She pouts, the pronounced color of her lipstick emphasizing the emotion. "Such a shame that Cage is a superhero. All that muscle make him a  _marvelously_  deliciouslookingchocolate package. And She-Hulk always wants to fight first and talk later." She drapes out of the window elegantly, her sigh waxing poetic. "She has such gorgeously sculpted arms."

Harry growls almost imperceptibly, leaning up on an arm. "Felicia please tell me you did not come to visit me for girl talk."

The Black Cat tilts her head at him, gorgeous locks adjusting with the change. "Harry if I wanted to have girl talk I would've gone to my girlfriend, who I may or may not have."

The orange clothed prisoner bares his teeth. "You say that every week."

"And every week, I tell you about all the superheroes and heroines I would like to have filthy sex with." Felicia swings around athletically, leaning her chin on her hands to gaze oh so innocently at him. "Harry my dear if I wanted to talk about Mac lipstick with you I Could because in case you forgot  _you can't do a damn thing about it_. Rotting here in this tiny cell, not a soul to call on you." She traces the edge of the window and shoots a falsely sympathetic look towards you. "Not even that boy you were friends with before. You scared him away, didn't you? Going all mad with rotten genetically altered venom you really  _shouldn't_ have used." She tuts condescending and Harry's face nearly purples with fury.

"He betrayed me." Harry hisses, standing up from the bed. "He betrayed ME. ME, not him! I asked him for help and he said no he couldn't  _help_ me." The dark green color slowly deepens and creeps up his neck, those flinty blues now tinged in green.

"He couldn't help you because he  _hates_ you, Harry!" The Black Cat's words are smug and slap Harry in the face with shame. "You were crazy! Acting out of your mind! You tried to force your illness, your _problems_ on him and then you went crazy and killed that poor innocent girl!"

The previous herr to the Osborn fortune balls his fits, tension in every line of his body. He doesn't remember much after shooting up with the venom in the basement, and only has brief flashes of blinding pain and a clock tower. He doesn't remember why he killed that girl, Gwen Stacy as he found out afterwards, but he knows it had something to do with Spider-Man. Perhaps he was the one that killed her, that despicable piece of shit who hides behind his mask and claims to be a savior of all. He condemned Harry, didn't he? He condemned him to madness and poison and  _he_ was why he was here. That was it. That was it exactly.  _Spider-Man_ killed Peter's girlfriend and that was why Peter didn't visit, because he was too riddled with grief. 

"He doesn't visit because he's in mourning,  _Fe-li-cia._ " Harry grounds out, each syllable screeching through his teeth. "And Spider-Man isn't patrolling as often because he's guilty. Guilty of killing that girl because he's a murderer."

Felicia shrugs, twirling a strand of white hair around her finger. "Peter doesn't visit, perhaps, because he's trying to get over the girlfriend he's lost. Or it's because he holds you responsible."

" _Spider-Man killed that girl._ " Harry insists again, eyes wild as he defends himself. "And Peter doesn't visit because - he doesn't - if he  _loved me like I_ -" He stops, horrified. What has just slipped out of his mouth Harry has always been loathe to share with anyone, including himself. Insanity truly does make the tongue grow laxer.

Felicia doesn't usually press this deeply with him. Spends a few minutes teasing about how he's become someones prison bitch and how free she gets to be and how does it feel to have your old assistant rob your home blind while you rot in prison? before leaving but tonight, yes tonight she had found him out.

The Black Cat, on her part, gives him a feral grin. "Oh." she crows, clapping her hands together. "Oh, this is good."

Harry sits on his bed with a thump, hands fisted in his hair. "Go, Felicia. Just  _go_."

He's at his breaking point of the night, and Felicia can tell. She shrugs (she was going to try and hit up a pampered socialites apartment that night for a diamond heist anyway) but can't resist having the last word, even as she fastens the bars back onto his cell. "Sleep well, dear Harry. And don't think I wont bring this up next time I come over." She blows him a kiss and bounds away into the night, leaving Harry be.

The young man suddenly looks quite small and lonely in the room as he curls up on the bed, dirty blonde hair too long and flopping over his face, blue eyes flashing at times madness and pain. " _He did this._ " he mumbles fiercely to himself, hands in fists. " _Spider-Man is the reason for it all."_

In another world, Harry Osborn and Peter Parker are best friends and nothing comes between them. In the world the boy in the cot wants to live in Harry Osborn and Peter Parker are more than friends and Harry's love is returned in a way that it's never been all his life. In this world, however, Harry Osborn and Peter Parker are not friends anymore.

Harry Osborn is excruciatingly alone.

 

* * *

 

Her key had still worked in the door, but that didn't surprise Gwen very much. Cindy was really bad at updating things, whether it was a calendar or her birth control regulation app.

Peter liked her apartment, and told her so. The walls were alternately black, red, and blue, and it somehow worked with the entire color scheme. From the mostly chrome plated kitchen to the bookshelves in the living room framing the moderately sized TV and comfy brown couch, it's remarkably homey for an apartment populated by college students. A peek into Cindy's room demonstrated an almost concerning lack of tidyness. ("Her parents were pretty lax when it came to clean rooms," Gwen told him, breezing past the mess with the ease of familiarity. "Lax when it came to room, but had sticks up their asses when it came to getting with the times. I swear Cindy hadn't seen a single show that aired after 2000 until she moved in with me.") Large posters of Sailor Moon, the cast of F.R.I.E.N.D.S, and  Assassin's Creed featured prominently along with lines of bright white icicle lights draping round in the room, pulsing in tandem.

The art displayed at various points in the apartment was gorgeous, soulful pieces of blinking eyes blending into a starry sky and a garden of blooming flowers with a galaxy color scheme. They were all Cindy Moon originals, Gwen explained, and Peter couldn't help but be impressed. The art majors talent truly showed, and it made much more sense to see the finished product rather than the crazily dancing Asian girl singing aggressively to Queen while splashing colors on a canvas. They really needed to close their windows more, the curtains weren't for decoration for chrissakes.

Gwen's room hadn't changed all that much from the last time she'd been there but there was evidence of Cindy's attempts to pack it up. Her closet was mostly empty, but the rest of the room was intact. The California King bed (her one splurge) proudly taking up residence in the center of the room, still perfectly done with a quilted lavender blanket and hospital corners, white pillows fluffy and eager for a head to rest on. Art deco posters placed in very aesthetically pleasing ways next to each other, DNA strands of ribbons lovingly constructed on the wall. A large Columbia University pennant hung on the wall behind her neat desk, and her laptop lay perfectly in the center, just waiting for her to return.

Her password unlocked  _Oscorp_ 's servers like a charm and she immediately went about searching. It was hard to now what to look up at first (you can't just type in  _shady ass underground lab where they experiment on dead people_ ) but eventually through some shady backdoors Gwen wasn't too proud of for using she found her way to Harry Osborn's personal data. Thank God for Julia Carpenter and her brief but ardent wish for all of her friends to become hackers like her. Despite this it takes her longer than she would've wanted.

In the time that it takes her to wade through  _Oscorp_ 's walls of files there is enough time for 1. borderline frantic but attempting to be vaguely concerned call from her mother, who needs constant reminders than Gwen is alive (she can't really blame her) 2. times for Peter to leave and return, once to go on a spontaneous patrol in which he stops a bank robbery with the Human Torches help and once to get his class notes for his upcoming midterm and 3. times ten cups of coffee, or at least that's what it feels like. By now it's sunset, and Peter is lounging on her bed, one hand pinching the bridge of his nose in tiredness when her voice catches his attention.

"Finally. Peter, I found something!"

"Really? What? What is it?" The lanky, muscled brunette man vaults off her bed and comes to her side almost instantly, those ridiculously, dumbly attractive hipster glasses on his face. The slight sheen from his mask captures the light from her desk lamp and makes the jeans pocket it's stuffed in stand out.

"It was hidden in tons of dummy folders and sections, but it's labeled  _Special Projects_." Gwen reads, leaning back a bit, a hand gently touching her tight shoulders. Peter sets about massaging them automatically, eyes still intent on her screen, and Gwen's heart melts a little. "It's got stuff on here about Electro, a really shady deal with this group called The Hand, defunct contracts with the government from like the 1930's - but this is the most interesting part." She clicks on a file labeled  _Experiments_ and scrolls down to #12114GS. "That number is the same one on those files. You went through them right?"

Peter nods, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "All it says is they treated you with electric and various mixes of formula from over the archives they've put together over the years. We still don't know why they picked you, or what exactly it was, but you were lying frozen down there since..." his voice trails off and Gwen refuses to look at him, knowing the guilt that will be haunting his eyes. She reaches up and squeezes his hand, which he returns just as strongly. "Since it happened."

The blonde double taps on the ostentatious label and is almost blindsided by the sheer amount of fancy, almost legal speak on the document. "Whoa." she blinks, not ready for the wall of text.

"Shit, I thought these people were scientists not lawyers." 

"This is way above my pay grade." Gwen agrees. "And above yours. This is going to take a bit to get through. I'm going to get some water, you want any?"

Peter shakes his head, kissing her forehead before she vacates the chair. "I'm good. No coffee this time?"

"Not this time. I think I'm going to become desensitized to espresso if I keep it up. Okay, I'll be right back."

The blonde girl pads into the kitchen while Peter slips into the desk chair she just left, opening up a notepad to try and jot down the important bits. Gwen's pouring a glass of water for herself, minding her own business, when there's a small  _zing_ near the base of her skull right before the door starts to open. Gwen freezes, a chorus of  _shitshitshit_ running through her head.

Common sense dictates she should duck and hide, but where? How would she explain the Peter in her bedroom? So she stands there, grey green eyes wide and anxious as the door opens and her roommate walks in, the smell of barbeque chicken wings wafting from a plastic bag she's carrying. Cindy's straight black hair swings in it's perfect cut against her shoulders, and almond eyes get as round as saucers when they see Gwen standing sheepishly in the kitchen.

Cindy screams. And then gasps. And then screams some more.

_Well, this was easy while it lasted._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> link: http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/11114/111142536/4068785-spiderman_t-rex.jpg
> 
> I hope you guys love the chapter! I was great to spend some time with Harry in his cell and I always wished Felicia had had more time in the movie. Any feedback would be really appreciated everyone, so don't feel hesitant to tell me! Also I resonate heavily with Felicia - my bisexual ass would LOVE to get it on with a lot of the Marvel heroes and villains. C'est la vie. Maybe in another life.


	6. Learning. (Part 1)

Cindy doesn't take scientific resurrection very well.

"So they - th - they stole your  _body_?" she blubbers, brown eyes filled with tears. Gwen's sitting next to her on the couch, rubbing her back reassuringly though she's not sure how much reassurance she can really give (your dead roommate is rubbing your back everything's totally going to be okay) and Peter sits on the ottoman in front of them, legs stretched out and hands clasped in front of him. He looks concerned and vaguely doctor-like, telling his patient something that will rock their world, and it's giving Gwen visions of Peter in a lab coat and a button down shirt, tie include. Fuck. The mental picture should not be as hopelessly attractive as it is.

"And then they experimented on it in their underground super secret lab and kept me there like a lab rat." Gwen adds, tucking a blonde curl behind her ear.

Cindy blinks at her, lip trembling. "Who would do that?"

" _Oscorp._ " Peter and Gwen say immediately with no hesitation. Cindy might not have the background with the company that they have, but she's heard Gwen complain about her work more than enough. That plus this new evidence kind of doesn't make the company look too good.

Gwen's roommate scowls through her tears. "That's pretty shitty of them."

"I agree, but here I am in front of you and not in a pine box." Gwen shrugs. "Is this going to be too much for you? Should I start looking for a new roommate? It's totally fine if it is." It's totally fine, but Gwen really doesn't want to. She doesn't know how she's going to find another apartment with rent this good and a roommate this amazing, but she'll leave it up to Cindy.

"No I - I mean it'll take a little bit, but I was still getting used to you being gone. I can, you know, get used to you being not dead. I prefer it, actually." Cindy blows her nose and sighs, pushing overgrown black bangs out of the way. "Wow. This'll be really hard to explain."

It only took the better half of an hour to get it through to her, but the results in the end were worth it. Gwen has her roommate back, but more importantly her  _friend_ and those things are hard to come by. Especially when you resurrect from the dead and everyone's started to move on without you. Peter catches her attention by squeezing her knee and Gwen catches his eyes with her own, a warm smile appearing on her face. God, she didn't know what she'd do without him. Gwen could make a go of things alone, of course - she'd mourned for her dad without his help, taken care of her family, kept her grades up - but it was better with him. That's the thing about love, when you do it right. The person shouldn't complete you but make you a better version of yourself, and vice versa.

"Okay. Alright." Cindy flicks her hair back and shakes herself, seeming to be trying to get herself back together.  "Now that we've sorted that out - kinda - who is  _this_ cutie here and how long have you been hiding him from me?" She tries to glare at Gwen but it's half-assed at best and Gwen can tell she's still trying to keep the tears back.

"This is Peter. Peter Parker, meet Cindy Moon." 

They shake hands, the brunette man's cheeks flushing at Cindy calling him 'cute'. Gwen can't blame him. Cindy is a beautiful girl, tall and willowy with a slim build that she keeps meticulously through yoga. She's ten times better than Gwen at makeup even on a bad day, but barely even needs to use it because her light skin never ever gets pimples and her lips are like, naturally pink. It's disgusting, almost, how pretty she is, but Cindy's so damn kind and funny and snarky that it helps Gwen feel not as inferior.

"Peter Parker as in - ?" Cindy shoots a glance at Gwen, asking her a question with a furrowed brow. Gwen nods, remembering a night where she's drank too much wine and blubbered away into a big tub of Ben & Jerry's Brownie Batter about how she was still in love with her boyfriend from high school. They'd been living together for almost a year - from the August of freshman year to now, mid October of sophomore - and Peter came up often when Gwen was angry. Cindy still didn't know the honest reasons between their breakup (and she never would) but she knew how much Gwen was hung up on him. She was the reason Gwen had unwillingly tagged along behind her at parties and had, on occasion, gotten laid. Only like twice, she swears. She doesn't believe in slut shaming (if it's not your body then there's no place for your judgement thank you very much) but it was hard for Gwen to let loose like that. She doesn't think she's a fan.

"Well,  _Parker_ , it's about time you got your head out your ass." Cindy sniffles the last of the tears away and straightens her back. "Gwen's a catch and it's not nice of you to make her pine away for you and all that stupid stuff."

Peter raised a brow at Gwen, brown eyes sparkling. "Pine away for me?"

If her blush got any deeper Gwen's face would resemble a volcano. "Shut up, Parker."

Cindy stood up on wobbly legs, brushing non-existent lint from her skin tight jeans. "Denial isn't a good look on your Gwennie. Okay, I need to - I have a project due on Monday that I need to get started on and - you know, I have to  _process_ this so I'm going to just. Go to my room now. Nice to meet you Peter and I'm glad you're not fully dead, Gwen? Shit. I need some alcohol. I gotta call Leesh."

"Wait." Gwen grabbed Cindy's wrist, the look in her grey green eyes anxious. "You can't tell Felicia yet. I'm trying to keep it only to need to know for now because I'm pretty sure that  _Oscorp_ 's not too happy that I got away. I don't want them to come after me, or my family, or anyone else I care about.  _Please_." Cindy hesitates, but nods in agreement. Cindy met Felicia, her girlfriend, at a bar on a night out. Although a sophomore like Gwen herself, Cindy had taken a few gap years and didn't start until she was 20, so she took full advantage of being legal enough to drink on the weekend. Gwen had only met Felicia once and had been totally starstruck by her. She was beautiful in that fabulous, Upper East Side kind of way with deep blue eyes and long hair that was curiously white. Regardless of all of this, Felicia didn't deserve to get drawn into this mess.

"Okay. For you." Cindy slips her hand out of Gwen's gentle grip and massages her temples, picking her way out of the tangle of legs. "I still need alcohol." She makes her way to the kitchen and pours herself a couple of shots of vodka, squinting her eyes at Peter and Gwen. "No ones going to join me?"

Peter shakes his head. "I have a night job. Can't afford to."

"And I'm still trying to figure out what happened to me so I need a clear mind." Gwen adds, letting Peter tug her into a standing position. "Don't worry. I'll check in on your ever so often to make sure you're not dying of alcohol poisoning." 

"Suit yourself," Cindy says, and hits back the shots she's poured. "Fuck. I'm going to go get shitfaced, in my room, and watch Friends reruns. I may or may not start my project. Don't worry about me." She leaves the glass and takes the Svedka into her room with her. The door shuts, and the very recognizable sounds of hand claps starts is heard a few minutes later.

"She took that better than I thought she would," Gwen admits, swiping her water from the counter and leading the way back to her room. "I'm pretty proud of her."

"Feels good to put a voice to the face." Peter answers Gwen's inquiring look with a grin, pulling a chair up to her desk. "We were facebook friends already."

Gwen rolls her eyes, using a few bobby pins to make a small bun at the back of her head.

It was time to get to work.

 

* * *

 

_Mom: Sweetheart are you coming home tonight?_

_Gwen: Probably not, but I'll come back tomorrow morning. Cindy took me coming back pretty well so I'm going to move back in._

_Mom: Oh. Okay._

_Mom: Your brothers miss you._

_Gwen: And I miss them. But I cant let you store me in bubble wrap._

_Mom: I know, but I wish I could. Mothers are supposed to go first, you know. The pain of putting your baby in the ground is too much._

_Mom: I just cant do it again._

_Gwen: I know Mom. You wont have to, I promise._

_Mom: Okay. Can you take the boys to the skate park on Sunday? They enjoy spending time with you and Peter._

_Gwen: Okay Mom. I love you._

_Mom: I love you too._

 

* * *

 

It takes them four days to figure out just how strong Gwen is.

Friday night they wrap up for the night and watch _High School Musical 3_ with Cindy for shits and giggles.

("I don't get why all the girls like this movie," Peter complains, his arm around Gwen. 

"It's because Zac Efron is hot as fuck," the blonde mumbles, Peter's heartbeat in her ear lulling her to sleep a bit. Well that, combined with the lovely melody of Vanessa Hudgen's singing.

"He has swoopy hair and spends the whole time talking about how he doesn't know if he wants to sing for his future." Peter motions to the screen, where Troy Bolton is dancing in a junkyard. "And then he sings."

Cindy smacks his arm. "Shut up, Parker. You're ruining the movie.")

Saturday Peter spends almost the whole day on patrol and Gwen starts putting her life back together (her mom helps her put her clothes back in the car and Gwen's room feels more homey again.  After some hesitation, she clears out a drawer for Peter, but is too sheepish to show it to him. Sunday they go out with her brothers and Peter impresses them with his 'super sweet' skate tricks and Howie whispers to Gwen that her boyfriend is super cool and he's glad that they're back together. They eat at Red Robin and Simon and Peter make an elaborate construction of ketchup and salt packets. Phillip tries awkwardly to hit on their waitress but she's not having it until Peter and Howard talk overly loudly about how strong and handsome he is (while sounding like complete fools). It works, for some reason, and she drops them all off at their moms with the waitresses phone number burning a hole in Phillip's pocket.

Monday after a little bit of wheedling Peter leaves his extra pair of web shooters with her before going to class at Empire State. Gwen tinkers with them a bit, and subsequently gets web fluid all over her face (honestly what did she expect. she was a biology, genesplicing, experiment with chemicals kind of scientist. she was  _not_ a mechanic kind of scientist). So she leaves the web shooters alone to ask Peter about later and decides to see exactly how strong her new sticking-to-walls talent is. This, is also a give-take situation, but Gwen's persistent and eventually she's climbing all over her walls, like, well, a spider. Her Florence + the Machine poster falls victim to her learning process, but there must be casualties in every war.

They managed to figure out that it was some of the spider-venom that Richard Parker had worked on, along with the decay rate algorithm and and some concoctions that  _Oscorp_ 's scientists figured were fine to test on a corpse. That, in conjunction with an electrical malfunction and whatever else they hadn't documented but used on her is that brought her back to life. Stranger things had happened. Look at Captain America for Gods sakes, so Gwen didn't feel altogether  _too_ weird about being alive. She'd much rather take her chances and go with it. Gwen was done looking behind her.

When Peter comes back from patrol late at night she is way too excited to show him but all that halts when he stumbles through her window instead of his usual languid climb. "Shit," Gwen breathes, and rushes to his side, running her hands all over him. "Peter what - what happened, whats wrong?"

"'m fine, just a bit - a bit singed. Some dumb Electro wannabe. Mostly  _tired_." He pulls off his mask and tilts his head back, loosening a sigh. Peter's normally messy brown hair is matted to his head with sweat like it usually gets after a patrol. There's a bruise blooming high on his cheek and sheer exhaustion in the lines of his body as he strips off his suit, pulling on a pair of sweatpants that he'd left at her place the last time. It's a good thing that Aunt May just assumes that he's spending all this time with Gwen anyway. Otherwise, this would be rather hard to explain with his bed being empty so often.

When Peter falls into bed, groaning into her pillow, bruises on his arms and scars on his chest, he looks so vulnerable that her heart aches. Gwen knows that he loves her but God there's so much  _trust_ between them that it almost overshadows the emotion, despite being apart of it. No one else truly knows he is but her, and she doesn't give a shit if it puts her in danger. Peter has no one, no one in his life that he can truly be honest with but her. Gwen wouldn't hesitate to lay her life down for that, and his secrets. 

Would do it again in a heartbeat, even if it meant stopping hers.

"Your pillows are so soft," Peter mumbles, and she smiles at the words.

"Maybe it's just because you have a hard head." Gwen retorts and Peter laughs before groaning, the movement stretching a recent scar on his abdomen.

Gwen sits on the edge of the bed and shakes out the colorful suit, examining it. There's a few rips in the spandex (it does smell like a burned candle), and even more places where Peter had darned it himself. She imagines him sitting on the edge of his bed and pricking himself, muttering colorful expletives, and it makes her smile a little. "I hope you have more of these," the blonde comments, putting it in the empty drawer. "Because this one needs some work before you take it out again." 

Peter opens one Bambi-eye at her and cracks a half smile. "After I figured out the kinks in the first couple, I have the process down by now. I think I have like, four?" He rolls over onto his back and tucks an arm under his neck, both eyes closed. Peter's body stretches with the motion and his muscles ripple, making Gwen's throat dry. He's too hot. He is simply too unfairly hot and he's all worn out from saving the citizens of New York but Gwen still kind of wants to bang his brains out. Repeatedly. Make out with him against walls and show her how sexy being a superhero is. And how sexy being Peter Parker is because even if he was still 'not' taking pictures of her and skating around the hallways Gwen would still love to have hot, messy sex with him. In janitors closets, if her fantasies were any indication.

"Hey Gwen?"

"Mmm?"

"Was the drawer you just put my suit in empty?"

Gwen freezes mid taking her bobby pins out of her hair. "Uh. What?" she says eloquently, mentally kicking herself.

Peter pushes himself up to sitting and wraps his arms around her from behind, pulling her against him. His skin is warm through the thin fabric of her well worn NYPD t-shirt and Gwen does nothing to resist the urge to snuggle in. "Your drawers are heavy. They push the air really hard when you open them. The one that you just opened sounded pretty empty, Gwendolyn Stacy." Peter's tone is teasing, and when he nuzzles into her neck to say it she doesn't mind the sweat. 

"Well Peter Parker it might be." Gwen cant keep the smile off her face even though worry pulls at her stomach.

"Aw. You  _do_ want to keep me." 

"Most of the time." She pokes him in the stomach behind her and then turns around, grey green eyes both serious and joking at the same time. "When you're not trying to tell me what to do, or keep me safe, or let my dad get in the way." They can skate around why Gwen broke up with him after graduation all they want but Gwen's never been a fan of untouchable topics. Peter's forehead drops to Gwen's shoulder and he lets out a sigh, squeezing her tight.

"I just want to keep you  _safe._ " Peter's voice gentles with sadness. "Is that so bad?"

Gwen turns in his arms and kisses the bottom of his chin. "It's not," she says, looking up at him. "But you've got to let it be on my own terms." 

 

* * *

 

 

They talk in circles for a long time before Peter tries to go out on one more patrol. Gwen's not having it. She straddles her boyfriends waist, pins his arms above him, and tells him that under no circumstances is he leaving again. Spider-Man can arch a brow and say "oh really?" all he wants but Spider-Man's girlfriend is smart and grabs his web shooters, and webs him to the bed. That plus her new strength ensure that it would be really hard for Peter to go anywhere.

Under normal circumstances, kinky sex might've been had. Under these circumstances, Peter just sighs and agrees with her, and Gwen cuts the webs. They go to sleep curled around each other, and he doesn't say anything about her blonde curls getting into his mouth. They have a good sleep, all in all.

(with a small side of scientific discovery)

 

* * *

 

 

An emailed resume is sent from a certain blonde girls personal laptop the next morning. It goes through all the proper channels and eventually ends up going through the matrix of one Just A Really Very Intelligent System, who immediately send it straight to the phone of a genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, along with a note.

_Dear sir,_

_STARK Industries has recently received a resume for a position in our R & D Department. Her background checks out, and I believe she is more than suited for the task. _

_However, she has been declared legally dead. And her previous employer was Dr. Curt Connors, the man who turned himself into a giant lizard and tried to do it to the city too. Dr. Connors also killed her father._

_I thought perhaps I might pique your interest._

_Sincerely,_

_JARVIS._

 


	7. Progress.

Gwen's never been  _mugged_ before.

She's been lucky, she guesses, because she knows several people who have, and as of now Gwen's never been held at gunpoint by a shady character. She's never had her purse stolen, or had to give up her pearls to save her life. Maybe it's because she has a special guardian angel or something (read: Spider-Man), but Gwen counts her blessings.

Or at least she has counted them until now. She's walking down the street on her way back to Cindy and her apartment, minding her own damn business, when a pained-sounding mew issues from an alley. Gwen unfortunately channels her inner white girl (honestly she's ashamed of herself) and follows the sound, not one to stand by when a kitten might be getting abused. Out of nowhere a thick arm goes around her throat, meaty hands aiming to pin her arms at her sides. Her father’s training kicks in instinctively.

("No baby girl of mine is going out of this house without knowing how to kick some punk boys ass. C’mere honey, let your Dad show you how to make sure a boy doesn’t try anything funny on you again.")

Gwen drops her chin, grabs onto the arm and twists it away from her, kicking the man (or women, no reason to be sexist about thugs whoever they may be) between the legs and slamming her  _own_ arm into their neck against the wall. It is a man (so much for equality she supposes) and his eyes bulge a bit, pulling at her arm, but with her new strength he's unable to move, his legs kicking against the wall from their elevated position.

The embroidery on the strangers lapel reads  _Oscorp_ and it sends a current of fear through Gwen's stomach but she stuffs it down. This is not the time. She channels her inner CIA-agent or whatever and fixes what she hopes is an intimidating look on her face. "Who sent you?" Gwen snarls, trying to sound tough. The bottom of the  _Victoria Secret's_ bag she’s carrying hits the back of her leg and Gwen flushes immediately, thinking about how ridiculous this looks. A blonde girl, who’s maybe 120 pounds soaking wet, holding a thug dressed all in black against the wall with her arm, one small fist poised to hit his face. Wearing, of all things, skinny jeans and a grey button down with what may or may not be lingerie in an ostentatiously pink bag.

Wow. She sure makes a very scary picture, to, she doesn’t know, people who are afraid of ballet flats and lace wrapped in tissue paper.

No matter what Gwen seems to think, the thug she's holding hostage is very visibly scared by the strength she's displaying. Nothing quite strikes fear into mens hearts like a girl who can choke them out in one move, that’s for sure.

"Gareth Edwards!" he gasps, pulling at her arm. "Head of  _Oscorp_ security!" Gwen remembers him. Angled jaw, always had a comms device glued to his ear. The head of the boards personal guard dog and enforcer, and the person who tried to kick her out when she looked up Max so many months ago.

"And who might you be?" Gwen follows up, eyes squinting. "Other than an obviously not paid well enough thug. Or whatever you guys call each other."

He clams up immediately. His employer, he's willing to rat out, but not himself. Self-preservation over job preservation. Well. There are worse things. 

"Alright." Gwen presses her arm harder into his throat and the thug struggles for breath even though she keeps the pressure light enough just to scare, not to suffocate. "Here's what's going to happen. I'm going to punch you in the face so hard that your teeth will feel it for the next week, and you're going to go back to your boss and tell him I’m not going into that basement lab again, and certainly not easily. So don’t try." She makes good on her promise, and puts some of her newfound spider-strength into a hit right between the eyes. His head snaps back and his nose starts bleeding, but he's knocked out, so, mission success she guesses.

Despite the fact that she really had to take to care of the threat Gwen feels guilty almost immediately. Thug or not, he's probably got a job. Maybe a girlfriend or boyfriend. She supposes he did choose this life for himself, but he still deserves a little bit of decency. He didn’t try to put his hands in appropriate places in the beginning, but for the future Gwen guesses she’ll never know. All things considered, she still places him on the ground gently, covers him up with a few trash-bags. When she’s satisfied that he looks reassuringly like a sleeping homeless person she straightens her clothes and leaves.

Resuming the walk to her apartment, Gwen shakily pulls the sunglasses she's kept forgotten in her back pocket and shoves her glasses onto her face. Judging by the fact that they found her and then tried to kill her,  _Oscorp_ knows she's alive, and isn't happy about it. Either she could go into complete seclusion or she could face the problem head on. The thing is, Gwen doesn't particularly want to dye her hair and run around like a scared little field mouse. That's not who she is, and it's not the daughter that Captain Stacy raised. The daughter that made sure the antidote for lizard-evolving got to her boyfriend and throws herself into any dangerous situation to protect the ones she loves would take this time to stop trying to figure out what happened to her and get justice for it. Harry's in prison, she knows that, but the company he so briefly helmed got off scot free.

No matter how much she just wants to live her life in peace now, Gwen knows that’s not an option as long as  _Oscorp_ is in the wind, so she takes out her phone and dials a number that was handed to her on paper that smelled viciously of gin. It goes to voicemail, as is her luck.

" _Alias Investigations. We got cases n' shit, so leave a message._ "

Gwen does, because she's not a heathen. Even if Jessica Jones apparently is.

 

* * *

 

"You going to get that, Jess?" Luke Cage’s voice rumbles as he wipes sweat from his brow, panting a little, muscles heaving. The midday sun trying to come through the yellow curtains is weak, and sheds little light on the man and his bed partner. He stretches an arm behind him and watches languidly as Jessica leans over him to try and see her phone. Luke draws a big hand through the soft, now slightly damp curtain of black hair and sighs internally. He still doesn't know where the line is between them. Is there something more? Can he look past what role she had in his wife’s death? He knows he can. But can she? Can Jessica look past her guilt long enough to see him as more than just a bed partner and occasional crime fighting friend?

Luke doesn’t know.

Jessica listens to the voicemail and huffs, the release of air tasting a little of whiskey. She falls back into bed beside Luke and lays there for a moment, before jerkily, hesitantly leaning on his chest. Luke welcomes her offering and throws a burly arm around her. "People really need to learn how to take care of their own shit, my job is not being a violent babysitter.”

Luke cocks a brow. "Do you know them?"

"Not really, but I guess I’m going to have to now." Jessica rolls her eyes and pushes out a groan out of plush lips. Luke wishes she'd spend a little less time cursing with them and a little more time kissing him, at least when they're together, but he'd never say. "The client needs me to investigate a shady corporation. And she needs a lawyer. Really fucking badly."

"It's a good thing we know one, then." The densely muscled black man draws his fingers down Jessica's arm and feels pride when her skin goosebumps under his touch.

The dark-haired woman at his side types off a quick message to their resident blind lawmaker, complete with her perfunctory ‘fuck you too Murdock’, and leans into Luke's chest. "Tired? Or can we go another round? I'll completely understand if I actually fucked your brains out this time."

Luke smiles, and it warms something in Jessica that she'd never admit to. "Not this time, Jones. Now turn over."

 

* * *

 

There’s a secret hidden in Gwen’s bags.

Two secrets, if you’re counting the ridiculously overpriced lace concoction, but still. It makes Gwen feel delightfully devious in a way she's hasn't really felt before.

What she stuffs in the back of her closet when she gets home, however, is swathes of fabric. It’s a polymer sort of spandex-cotton blend that she spent a good amount of hours hunting down, and different colors of thread. She’s got it in purple, black and white, and she hides the plastic bags under winter coats and that one bag of clothes she keeps meaning to donate to the Goodwill. Right next to it is a sewing machine that Helen Stacy had been kind enough to lend her without asking too many questions. If Peter asks, its so he stops turning the pads of his thumbs into pin cushions. He doesn’t need to know. At least, he doesn’t need to know yet.

Logically, Gwen knows she should have more of a plan for tonight. She's got an interview in a few days, Howie's got his first big dance on Friday, she promised to bring Cindy and Peter over to her house for dinner something this week or the next - but she doesn't care. Gwen's got the rest of her life to be her put together sciencey self, to decide if she wants to go back to university, to go forward on the plan that's baking in the back of her mind to make her resurrection mean something in more than just a science way, but tonight?

Tonight she is a girlfriend, in love with her boyfriend, who wants to get it on tonight come hell or high water.

Gwen regrets nothing.

Over the weekend Gwen came over to Peter's place and effectively gave Aunt May the shock of her life, needing to explain why Peter was absent even more often than usual. It was harder for the older woman to come to terms with Gwen coming back to life, as Gwen imagined it was going to be, but they eased her into it slowly. Gwen shooed Peter out for a bit to talk with Aunt May herself, and it got better as they cooked lasagna together. Cooking was cathartic for Aunt May, Gwen had noticed when she and Peter first started dating, and she hypothesized that it would help make the idea of Gwen being a zombie-but-not-quite. As was often with Gwen's hypothesizes, it came true. Aunt May relaxed the more they talked about the generalities of what happened and how Gwen wanted to go forward to life, but Peter's surrogate mom still had a look of shock on her face when she caught Gwen out of the corner of her eye.

("Is it bad of me to wish that Ben had been dug up like you too?"

The words are whispered in the kitchen silence, punctuated by the hum of the oven as their food cooks. Gwen looks up at Aunt May, and her heart breaks at the sorrow and indecision in her lined face. She looks older when she's sad. "I know it was awful," Aunt May says quietly, wrapping her robe around herself more. "You were an animal to them. Just an experiment no longer a - a person." The brunette woman looks up at Gwen with tears in your eyes. "But if Ben could've come back to me - if there was any way - oh, right after it happened I would've  _taken_ it." She fists her hands on the edge of the kitchen countertop and breathes out very slowly, long brown curls tinged with grey falling over her shoulders. "I would've done anything to get him back. I lost a husband. Peter lost a father. I'm sure you know how that feels."

Gwen comes to lean next to Aunt May and hesitantly, slowly, lowers her head to rest her head on Aunt May's shoulder. "I do." Gwen says, emotion trembling in the words that escape both women. "And I want him back too." Aunt May's hand covers Gwen's and squeezes, tightly, which Gwen returns. Her hands are softer, more wrinkled that Gwen's mothers, and it makes Gwen wish that she could make sure that this wonderful woman could have a long and wonderful rest of her life with no more sorrow. She thinks about Peter climbing out the window every night whole and returning, almost always broken in some way, and feels sadness tug at every inch of her. Gwen knows Aunt May probably stays up some nights waiting for the soft thump of Peter's window closing. That she can't sleep until she knows her little boy is back home. Gwen understands that. Gwen  _knows_ that feeling, intimately, in ways she wished that she didn't.

That was Gwen every night since her eleventh birthday when Captain Stacy didn't come home, when he spent the night in the hospital due to a bullet in his leg. That was Gwen when her father's laughter at the dinner table is punctuated by winces caused by a split lip and a black eye. That was Gwen when she saw Captain Stacy head up to the top of the  _Oscorp_  building with nothing but a shotgun and the determination to both save the city and his daughter ‘man of many masks’ boyfriend. She still feels guilty about that night, because she believed in her father. He had come home in mostly one piece so far, and she thought he would again. Gwen had been mostly worried about Peter, about her seventeen-year-old boyfriend with a shy, rakish smile and a sense of responsibility that she both wish he didn’t have and admired him for.

Aunt May and Gwen were bonded, if nothing else, by their mutual love and worry for one Peter Benjamin Parker. And they both knew it. 

In the end, Aunt May kisses the top of Gwen’s head and hugs her tightly. “I’m happy you’re alive dear.” She says, a sad happiness in her eyes. “Ben will be happy to know that Peter has the love of his life again.”

Gwen, of course, immediately blushes. They’re both twenty – love of each other’s lives seems to be a bit of a high order – but she can’t say she hasn’t thought about Peter with a golden wedding ring, tossing their son or daughter into the air. “I’m glad too.” Gwen tells her, and almost on cue the oven chimes in.)

Gwen hadn’t asked Peter to officially move in with her yet, but the empty drawer in her dresser was filling rather quickly. Her heart sort of warmed up every time she checked and there was a new pair of underwear or socks. She made sure to pimp the hell out of the First Aid kit under the bathroom sink though, because that was a must. Gwen’s a more of the microscope and abstract science kind of girl but damn she’s become a great makeshift doctor over the years.

Her interaction with Peter that day had consisted of many flirty text messages and phone calls because his day had consisted of classes, helping Aunt May start to repaint the living room, and swinging about town kicking criminals asses. Gwen watches the news while making dinner and was extremely proud when she caught her smart talking, acrobatic, arachnid inclined boyfriend kicking the ass of some guy who called himself ‘Mole Man’ in Central Park with Iron Man and Cyclops who, according to mid fight banter, is only visiting. A new part of her, the part that held her own against a stranger in an alley and itches to try out sticking powers against the glass and metal walls of buildings, aches to be out there with them, but Gwen settles it for now.

Cindy gets home before Peter comes by. She's humming and wearing a blue t-shirt dress and flower crown, the look in her almond eyes hazy and warm. They widen when they see the ingredients on the kitchen and Cindy gasps in delight, stealing a strawberry. "Ooooo, you're wearing a sexy dress. And these are sexy foods." The Asian girl takes a bite of the fruit and closes her eyes in ecstasy. "Goddamn, these are delicious." she says breathily.

Cindy may or may not be a  _little_ high, Gwen notes. 

"Mother Nature will be very glad to hear that I'm sure," Gwen laughs, checking the oven. Her phone vibrates and she checks it, feeling buoyed when it's Peter saying he's just around the corner.

 _You swinging by?_ the blonde sends him with a winky face emoji, ignoring Cindy's pleasure filled moaning as she bites into a piece of Gwen's coffee cake.

 _Stop yourself,_ Peter replies.  _Stop it right now Gwen Stacy. You are better than horrible puns and emoji's._

Gwen sends him the spiderweb emoji and another winky face, just to be cheeky. She can feel him sighing from over here, Gwen swears.

"Okay, Cindy you gots to go."

"Huh?" Cindy blinks big hurt eyes at her. "But the food is so good! I don't want to leave!"

"Well thats a shame Cin, because I want to get fucked by my boyfriend and this dinner is supposed to seduce him so you gotta  _go_ ," Gwen insists, herding the pouting girl out of the kitchen and to her room. "Look, I give you a plate full of food but you've got to  _stay_ there. Like lock your door, do not come out. Pretend your room is the whole world."

"Awwwww." Cindy whines, but lets herself get led. "Okay. But just so you can get some dick."

"Yes, thank you." Gwen insists, pushing the door closed behind Cindy. She piles strawberries, coffee cake, and avacados on a plate for Cindy ("I LOVE AVACADOS." Cindy exclaims loudly, descending upon the plate like Godzilla on the Empire State Building) and puts on Lana Del Ray for her, knowing it tends to send the high version of Cindy straight to sleep. She has time to re-curl the ends of her hair before Peter knocks, and she answers the door with butterflies in her stomach and a smile on her face so big her cheeks hurt.

Peter looks good. He's wearing a deep navy button down for once, and nice fitting jeans, a slim black belt on. His warm brown eyes widen when they see her and his pupils dilate as he steps in the room, drinking her in. "Wow." he says and warmth spreads through Gwen's body. The dress she's wearing is ruby red and ties in a bow behind her neck, the back bare almost to her back dimples and a flared skirt that ended just past the middle of her thighs. Gwen regretted absolutely nothing about buying this dress, and regrets it even less at the look in Peter's eyes. Her flaxen hair falls to her shoulder in gentle waves and her lipstick and heels match the shade of her dress. 

"Wow right back to you." Gwen teases, trying to ignore the heat racing up her body when Peter's hand cups her neck. The kiss he lays on her cheek is gentle but promises more in the night to come.

"You made dinner?" He checks, moving past her to the kitchen. Gwen follows him, her heels clicking on the wooden floors.

"I  _tried_ to make dinner," she amends. "I only actually succeeded in baking some coffee cake, cutting some strawberries, and then I went and bought brownies from the store because I got lazy."

Peter pops a strawberry in his mouth, but his eyes stay on Gwen. "They taste amazing."

"Thanks. Did you want to sit down and eat?"

"Hmmm." Peter looks around at the kitchen at the food, and then looks back at her. "I think I want something else for dinner."

Gwen doesn't warm then, with air conditioning brushing at her bare back and Peter's eyes filled with flames.

She  _burns_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't want to compromise the T rating of this fic so if you want to read Peter and Gwen doing the very very very very VERY nasty then check my works! I'll be posting it soon, so look out for that. I know the chapter isn't as long as some of them but I had to cut it off before the sex scene. I really hope you guys enjoy the chapter anyway <3


	8. Advancing.

"Banner, look alive. You busy?"

Bruce Banner, world renowned scientist, cat owner, and generally kind and mild mannered individual, is still at times annoyed when he's interrupted. Green rage monster thing aside, Bruce is a scientist at heart. He wants to learn things, and know things, and make the world a better place. After the Battle of New York he finally got to shake his government stalkers and gets to science in peace working at Stark Industries, and then in turn the Avengers. Recently he and the British scientist Moira MacTaggart had been Skyping together and discussing the finer points of genomic enhancement and genetic mutations. It was this line of questioning that led to where he was now, running simulations through Tony's state of the art system with J.A.R.V.I.S.'s help.

Tony, however, did not care whether or not Bruce was occupied. He strolls in like he owns the place (which, to be fair, he does), wearing a white thermal with a slate suit jacket and pants. Blue sunglasses are pushed onto the brown mess about his head, his characteristic wry smile gracing his mouth. The lab is large and state of the art, filled with gadgets that some scientists could only dream of, but considering the fact that the two Avengers were the only people in the room it seemed a bit oppresive.

"Oh. Hi Tony." Bruce wrinkles his brow, hands stuck deep in his lab coat pockets. "I'm not that busy, I suppose. What brings you here?" This could be seen as a stupid question because Tony doesn't really need a reason to be there. Even ignoring the fact that he owns the whole building, the two scientists are basically roommates, what with the whole team taking up residence in what was formerly known as Stark Tower. Between saving the world, Pepper Potts, and working on Mark number whatever in his lab Tony has a remarkably light schedule.

"Bruce, buddy ol' pal, how would you feel about getting an assistant?" Tony untucks his hands from his pockets and slaps Bruce on the back, his earnestness a bit too effusive to be honest. "That sound good to you?"

The curly haired scientist twists his lips, eyes skipping past his friend to the calculations running on the screen. "No, switch these two." Bruce gestures to the ones he means and JARVIS obliges. 

" _Yes Doctor Banner._ "

"Tony, you know I don't play that well with others. You and the team I can stand because you put with me and my, uh," he searches for the right words. "Issues. I like being mostly alone. Doctor Cho helps me out when I need it, Dr. Richards is far from a stranger. I video call scientists from other places and some of the assistants on the floor come in to help when JARVIS calls them." Bruce is trying his hardest to put this gently. He knows that Tony is just trying to give him some company, but he likes the quiet of his lab. He likes playing classical music and having casual conversations with JARVIS in between experiments. When he wants to socialize with others, he'll look for his friends. If Natasha and Clint aren't on a mission or, uh,  _otherwise occupied,_ it's a pretty safe bet that they'll be beating each others asses on the two floors dedicated to the gym or in their rooms. Tony is nearly always in the tower, Steve setting up shop in the kitchens because he's discovered that he actually really likes cooking. Thor's more of a hit and miss what with being off world and all, but Vision is only a request to JARVIS away. Then there's Wanda, Sam, that new guy Hank Pym, Jennifer and Stephen Strange is quickly becoming someone Bruce sees as a friend.

"Ah, yes, but this one is special." Tony taps his phone against the table the holographic screen is suspended above as he rounds it. "JARVIS, would you pull up Gwendolyn Stacy's resume for Dr. Banner?"

Bruce pulls the screen closer to get a better look, the profile appearing about an inch from the glass in high definition. Tony, nonplussed by his silence, gives him the highlights. "137 IQ, 4.0 GPA from Midtown. Finished out her high school career with 20 college credits under her belt. The first intern  _Oscorp_ hired for their science division whose contributions were valuable enough for them to start paying her while she was still in high school. Plus, rumor has it she was a really great people person. You need more people persons in your life."

Bruce shrugs, still scanning the cover letter. "Debatable." Steve got along with everyone. Natasha only got along if she had to with Clint's presence tempering her out. Thor was simply an overwhelming but very genial  _presence._ Vision was so polite he made Bruce's teeth hurt a bit and the Other Guy uncomfortable. The rest of the team...yeah, Bruce is sticking with debatable.

"Regardless Big Guy, she intrigues me. And she worked under Dr. Connors."

This catches Bruce's attention. "Lizard turning Doctor Connors?" The two of them had actually brushed paths in Bruce's before-turning-green years. Curt, and Richard Parker, his partner in crime, had both seemed nice to him. Had a preoccupation with animal testing, particularly arachnid, which wasn't Bruce's specialty by a long shot. He was sorry to hear about the Parker's plane crash when it happened. When the Lizard incident occurred he and Tony had been helping S.H.I.E.L.D. decode what they could of the Chitauri weaponry and under restricted access (not that Tony cared). His metal plated friend was two seconds away from strapping the suit when Spider-Man had made his big official debut, saving the day.

"The one and only." Tony drops into a nearby swivel chair, clicking his tongue and lacing his hands together behind his head. "The kicker is, Connors killed her father. She  _kept_ working for the company and only left after the Electro debacle."

Bruce whistles and pushes the screen away from his face. "Strong girl. I still feel bad we weren't here to help with Electro."

"Thor's hammer would've been great to kickstart the power again, but we were in Sokovia, Banner. What were we to do? Spider-Man managed to get it under control."

The dark haired scientist shoots Tony a look from over his glasses. After living with the man for almost four years he was getting pretty good at telling when there was an emotion he wasn't showing. "Sixteen people died that night, Tony. Not counting those who were on life support, or that died from injuries afterwards."

Tony's brown eyes shutter. It's not that he doesn't feel pain, because he does, but guilt is his biggest weakness. He'll let it destroy him if Tony's not careful. "I know that. You don't think I know that?"

Bruce doesn't say anything, and he doesn't have to - they both know the answer. It's a fight every day to stay out from under the crushing knowledge of the people they couldn't save. That's a hard part about being a hero. You always wonder how many more you could've saved if you'd just pushed yourself  _just a bit harder_. Tony clears his throat and smooths his hands down his slack, moving on. "Anyway, she's applied for a position and I'm going to have her come in to interview. At least say you're open to it?"

Bruce massages the bridge of his nose, opening one eye at Tony. He loves his team, he does, they're the closest thing he has to family now (except for Jennifer who was family before since they were cousins and all), but sometimes he thinks they try too hard to socialize him. He wishes they would focus on Steve more, but the guy so damn charismatic they didn't worry as much about it. Probably has something to do with the fact that when he gets angry he runs it off and Bruce transforms into an almost unstoppable large rage monster. He wants to say no, but Tony looks so sure of himself. And hopeful. Out of all of them he gets across 'trusting puppy' the best.

"Fine," Bruce sighs, and the unashamed grin that smooths over Tony's face almost makes it worth it.

"Great! Her interviews on Monday at nine. JARVIS will tell you where to meet."

Bruce misses his quiet time already.

 

* * *

 

Gwen hasn't gone to a job interview in a hot minute, but she remembers the basics.

She's wearing a grey pencil skirt and a light green sleeveless button down, elegant black heels on her feet. Normally Gwen's not a huge heel person but this particular pair makes her feel like she can crush the world under the stiletto. It's a huge confidence builder. She's waiting in an office thirty floors into Avengers Tower (!!!) and more than a little nervous, turning the manila folder with her resume in it over and over again in her hands. The description for the position was pretty generic, asking for college students looking to major in biochemistry, genetic engineering, physics, or electrical engineering to assist in the R & D department of Stark Industries. At the very end of the description it indicated that if you were only applying to work with superheroes this was not the job for you. You wanted something like that, try the Baxter Building.

As time ticks on a flush creeps up Gwen's neck, almost to the bottom of her short haircut, a slight feeling of unease riding her shoulders. Maybe she shouldn't have come so early. It could've been later, but she stayed strong and dragged herself away from Peter's warm body and very willing lips this morning. She wanted to be jealous of his ability to sleep in but she just couldn't. Peter deserved the world, even when she was grumpy about waking up early and wanted to shove his ass out of bed so he felt her pain.

Words draw her out of her thoughts. "Miss Stacy?"

A woman approaches her, smiling benignly, hand outstretched for a shake. Gwen stands up instantly in response and brushes her hands on her skirt, shifting the manila envelope with her resume under her arm so she can reciprocate. "That's me!"

"Lovely. I'm Jennifer, it's nice to meet you."

Gwen refrains from saying that she knew that this woman was, indeed, Jennifer Walters, because she knew it was probably a response the woman got all the time. Jennifer Walters was two things in the public eye - she was the current lawyer for the team known as the Avengers, tag teaming on press conferences with Black Widow herself, and she was also the superhero known as She-Hulk. Such was her transformation that whenever it had happened she had never been able to turn back. Thus, the woman shaking Gwen's hand was 6'7" and had skin a gorgeous fluorescent green. Long tightly curled forest green hair swung from a high ponytail and a black skirt suit dressed a well muscled body. Jennifer's eyes were shrewd and fathomless, almost black as they took her in. She must have liked what she saw because the smile warmed.

The golden freckles on the blonde's face crinkle as she returns the grin. "It's a pleasure. Are you who I'm interviewing with today?"

"Sort of. We may have some visitors during, just don't worry about it. The interview itself will be very short."

They head off down a hallway to an elevator and Jennifer keys in a special code, pressing the button for floor 49. Gwen feels awfully small and fragile next to the imposing and incredibly gorgeous lawyer but doesn't say anything. "Do you have any advice for me?"

Jennifer tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. "Be honest. Bruce likes honesty."

Panic seizes her. Bruce?  _Bruce_ _? Bruce Banner?_ Genius Bruce Banner? Gwen thinks she might faint. 

The lab Jennifer leads Gwen to before leaving is airy and light. Little touches like bonsai trees and extremely comfortable looking lab chairs among the state of the art equipment tell her that whoever decorated cared about making it homey for the occupant, and it relaxes her. She doesn't quite know what to do (Jennifer just wished her good luck and didn't give her any further instructions).

An opening door catches her attention and Gwen stares, eyes wide as Bruce Banner walks through the door. He's got a paper bag of Chick-fil-A take out in his hand and is humming one of Vivaldi's suites. He blinks when he sees her, scratching a hand at the back of his salt and pepper curly hair. "Hello. Are you lost?"

"Um. No. I hope not. I'm Gwen Stacy? Here for an interview?"

Dr. Banner's face falls a bit and it makes her stomach sink. Having the feeling that she wasn't wanted wasn't great for the confidence. "Oh. I'm sorry, have you been waiting long?"

"Just a few minutes at the most."

He places the bag on a counter and walks past her, pulling a screen down from a metal arm that hangs from the ceiling. Dr. Banner lifts up his glasses and stares into the center of the glass. " _Good morning, Dr. Banner_." says an automated, British accented voice that curiously seems to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Whirring noises and beeping starts up suddenly as the various scientific accouterments around them turn on.

"A.I.?" Gwen guesses, leaning on a table with little other knowledge of what to do. 

" _I_ _am JARVIS, Miss Stacy._ " answers the voice. " _I hope that Dr. Banner finds you to be a good addition to our team_."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves JARVIS." says Bruce absently, finally turning to face Gwen. "Why do you want this job? Out of - out of all of the places you apply, you chose here. Tell me why. And not the stupid, bullshit answer about how it's a good opportunity."

He was never this grumpy at his speaking engagements, but the blonde adjusts accordingly. Ah well, they say never meet your heroes. Gwen brushes a stray strand of her bangs away and blinks bright grey green eyes at him. "I have rent to pay.  _Oscorp,_ Stark Industries, and the Baxter Foundation are the leading scientific corporations in New York and I'm not on particularly good terms with the first company. The Baxter Building is nearly on the opposite side of the city from me, and Stark Industries means working for an place that I owe a debt to."

Bruce slightly loosens his folded arms, twisting his lips. "A debt?"

Gwen clasps her hands in front of her, gaze steady. "When my father died, S.I. sent a letter to my family apologizing for the conduct of a corporation that was intended to help causing the death of my father. Iron Man himself came to his funeral and saluted. He was the only police officer killed in the melee and it just. It meant a lot. I'm sure they sent other letters to the other victims, and the Baxter Foundation followed their lead later, but it helped make an already hard day a little easier." Rain streaks across her memory, black umbrellas, and the freezing cold of her mothers hands. Gwen refuses to lose herself in the memory, using her sadness to strengthen herself instead. "Also, the scientists employed here are extraordinarily gifted. I would be lucky to be counted among them."

Silence settles a moment after Gwen's finished and the two hold each others gaze, Bruce's dark brown eyes not leaving the brightness of Gwen's grey green ones. An decision passes across Bruce's face and ease settles into the ridge of his shoulder under the lab coat. "Okay." He turns and taps the active screen behind him, the conversation clearly over.

"Okay?"

" _What Dr. Banner is implying, Miss Stacy, is that if you want the job you have it. And if I may, welcome to the team._ "

 

* * *

 

"Stacy?"

"This is her. Who's this?"

"Jessica Jones. You left me a message wanting a lawyer and something about paying me to investigate  _Oscorp_? Jesus, you forget about me already? We've talked like, at least five times now." 

_harsh, but warm_

"Oh, God, yeah. It's been a long day."

"Get in line. Has Matt's gotten in touch with you?"

"We're going to go over the case on Monday. He's much more professional than you."

"Who gives a shit? You called me. You wanted my help. I'm helping you."

"I'm not saying I'm not grateful."

"Say it with your money instead of your mouth."

"Honestly it's a shock we even get along."

_wry, joking_

"It's my bubbling personality."

"No, it must be your irresistible allure."

"Yeah, yeah. Blond bitch. I found that secret lab you told me about. That shit is really shifty."

_serious, slight bit of concern_

"You can see why I need the lawyer."

"I'll forward you the pictures. Try not to get killed when I hang up."

"I'll do what I can."

 

_click_

 

* * *

 

 

It turned out better than she thought. No, Gwen's not kidding - it looks really good. The outfit is mostly black, with green rimming the bottoms of her feet. White dives down to a deep V and smooths along the sleeves, leading into the gloves. Purple fabric lines the inside of the hood and is marked with a mint green web pattern, a patch of the style on the underside of her upper arms. The mask is white as well, barring the suggested light pink'spider eyes' over her sightline. The polymer-spandex blend was a hell of a lot more breathable than Gwen had previously thought, and when done in two layers was durable and simultaneously not sufficiently warm. She didn't think she'd worn anything this body hugging in her  _life_ but Gwen didn't hate it. The blonde actually had an ass in this thing.

About a week ago she'd discovered why the insides of her wrists were increasingly itchy. One evening Gwen scratched too hard and a sappy liquid actually  _leaked out of her arm._ She'd almost noped out of the whole spider hybrid thing then and there but a look under a microscope told her that it was spider silk. Whereas Peter's webbing was a product of an  _Oscorp_ base and some tinkering of his own design, the spider bite had apparently given her an organic variant that came from her own body. It still freaked her out if she thought about it too much, but Gwen adapted. She always did.

Now Gwen was a person that liked to be prepared. She liked to research, to experiment, to know all the facts before jumping in.

What she was about to embark on, however, wasn't a thing you could do that with.

Superheroing.

That was what Gwen was going to do. She was going to take this new life that she'd given, the powers her return from the dead had resulted in, and use them for good. She could just become a scientist (and still planned to) and work on stem cell research to help others. Gwen could become a doctor, or a firefighter, or a police officer like her father. There are tons of ways to make a positive difference in the world, and Gwen could take advantage of any one of them...but she wouldn't be doing all she could. Doctors had no need for the ability to bench press a three times their body weight. Scientists didn't have a real purpose for genetically enhanced spider silk other than to study it.

Gwen wanted to  _help_. And this is how she wanted to do it.

That was why she was here on the rooftop of an apartment building a few blocks away from her apartment, wearing the costume she made. Gwen felt a little ridiculous, but it did send a thrill through her. She was going to do it! All dressed up and ready to go. She presses her middle finger and ring finger against her palm and fought down a giggle when the web stream hit and attached strongly to the next building. It's crazy. Gwen was crazy. This whole situation, this new  _life_ she was living ever since the blonde woke up in an underground lab, was insane, but strangely, Gwen wouldn't trade it for anything. 

Second chances were like that.

Gwen wraps her hand around the web and tugs, testing the strength for the millionth time, before taking a few steps back. Holding onto the web for dear life Gwen takes a running leap off the building, her head doing the physics calculations as to how ridiculously strong her webs must be to hold her up with the momentum and swing and then -

Then her brain shuts off because  _this is amazing_. 

Watching Peter swing across the sky was one thing but literally doing it, she means wow. This is incredible. It's like flying in all the best ways, with none of the jetlag and airsickness Gwen usually gets. Within a few minutes and swings the blonde has the hang out it, and can't resist letting out a loud and extremely unprofessional whoop. This exultation lasts right up until the moment an ill timed swing helps her catch the sight of a crazily familiar hero swinging like she was just a building around the corner. Gwen's stomach drops right through her feet to the ground below and she immediately swings into a building, using her sticky hands to climb up the sides as fast as she can. In less than a minute Gwen is hiding, quite embarrassingly, in full costume behind a rooftop access door while Spider-Man swings to the top of a building and settles on the side. He pulls up the bottom of his mask and fishes in a Subway bag that seems to be prewebbed beside him, and proceeds to bite into a footlong.

A zing hits at the back of her head and Gwen whips around, a swooping noise and the crackle of flames alerting her to someone elses presence.

The Human Torch cocks a curious eyebrow at her. "Um, are you a new supervillian, or do you have a good reason to be hiding very badly from Spider-Man?"

Gwen takes it back. Kill her right now.

This, is for certain somehow worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise Peter will be back next chapter. Hope this was okay! Still feeling my way around the characters :)


	9. Learning. (Part 2)

For a guy who's on fire 24/7 when saving people, it's surprisingly easy to tell what he looks like under the fire and the flames. Maybe that's why pretty much every member of the Fantastic Four is a public figure, because they don't really try to hide who they are under the costumes. Especially in the case of The Human Torch, him being so easy to spot after all. He's a bright flaming star in the night sky around him and Gwen wants passionately to yell at him to  _flame the hell off_ because Peter's totally going to notice him.

Johnny looks to be her age, maybe a couple of years older, and handsome with deep dimples and a warm smile even if you ignored the fact that he was on fire. He folds his arms and raises a brow at her, the heat around him crackling in the blue and red flames. "Well?"

Gwen abruptly remembers she's in costume and straightens up. "Not a new supervillian. I don't even have ah - I don't have a name yet. Trying to superhero. First outing."

"Aw, a super baby. I usually don't meet super babies until after they've been established." Johnny's croon is a little too saccharine for her tastes, but there's a genuine note of interest in it. 

"Sure." What's Gwen supposed to say to that? Bully for you? No, why on earth would she say that she's not Teddy Roosevel -

"Okay, well if you're new and all why are you hiding from Spider-Man? And should I be hiding with you?" The Human Torch gently lights down next to her and extinguishes himself, an amused tint showing in brown eyes that she can only see now that he looks human again. He creeps next to her and peeks around the corner, aforementioned hero avidly biting into his sandwich, kicking his heels into the edge of the building in a childlike way that temporarily distracts Gwen with how cute he's being. 

She debates a way to explain her current aversion to the wall crawler and for once, Gwen's brilliant brain comes up short. For the first time (but probably not the last), the blonde is glad her mask and outfit covers her expression. "Let's just say that he's not my favorite hero right now." This is of course a blatant lie. She's probably the president of the We Love Spidey fanclub but that has absolutely no bearing on the conversation they're having.

Johnny studies her, which Gwen imagines is hard through the costume, and eventually shrugs, making muscles ripple under the intertwined Fantastic Four logo. "I suppose I can't fault you for that. When someone's not in immediate danger you'd be shocked at how many petty feuds are going on. Especially between the X-Men and the Defenders, it's a wonder either of those teams get anything done."

The blonde shrugs, leaning her back on the door and sliding down it. "Common cause?"

The youngest member of the FF barks out a laugh, the smile that comes after it bright against his cocoa skin. "Isn't that what brings us all together?"

Gwen keeps a steady gaze on him through the white fabric eyes of her costume, sure he could feel it despite the barrier. "Maybe. I have a theory that every superhero has some sort of backstory that drives them to do what they do. Not all of them are happy, I'd imagine, and not everyone would want the same events to happen if they could go back in time."

For all that he'd been honest and amused with her before, this statement makes Johnny look away. There's a slight thickness in his tone that wasn't there before when he responds. "You could be right about that."

There's another ice cold zing of a prickle in her head (Gwen doesn't know why Peter doesn't just call it spidey-shock rather than sense) and shrill ringing interrupts the unexpectedly heavy conversation the two are having. Johnny flames immediately and lifts in the air, turning to try and tell where it's coming from, while Gwen changes stance, feeling on edge. "I know it's a bank, but I can't figure out where it is," The Human Torch says, a slight edge of frustration flirting with the crackles in his tone. The blonde herself turns a bit, trying to listen harder, and finds to her surprise that the intensity of the prickles changes with the direction she faces.

"I think I can tell where," Gwen breathes, excitement melding with the awareness in a way she's not sure she should be supporting. "Follow me." Immediately placing her trust in her spidey-senses and webs (because what else could she do?) Gwen takes a running jump off the building and shoots her webs, propelling herself with perches she instinctively aims for, The Human Torch following.

On their way a tingle at her toes prompts her to look down, and to her shock she spots a person on an aggressively loud and somehow demonic sounding motorcycle rumbling away from the direction they were heading in. Gwen almost forget to shoot her next web when she realizes she should amend the noun  _person_ to  _thing_ because people don't go around with skull heads at are on fire.

"Should we worry about THAT?" she yells to The Human Torch, hoping the wind doesn't steal her words away. He shakes his head, flames eating the air around him, keeping his eyes in the direction her senses were heading them to.

"Ghost Rider is a pain in the ass for sure, but I know he's not the culprit. Condemning souls to Hell is more his thing."

How the hell is Gwen to respond to  _that_ doesn't get to be addressed because the bank is coming into view and it's looking pretty bad. The top two floors are cratered and flaming, and it's a wonder the pillars are still holding up the third floor down, so many cracks and missing pieces in them. There's a police perimeter being held and a news reporter already on scene, words like "hostages"  and "trapped on the upper floor" floating up to them. 

It's one thing to see something like this on TV but entirely another to see it and have to get involved, and it sends a small tremor in Gwen's fingers as she sticks to a building just across the street. "You'd think they'd give up on robberies but noo," The Human Torch says sarcastically "they just had to hit a bank in the city with the most heroes. I'll never understand. Alright, time to work for a living - see you in there, Spider-Woman."

Spider-Woman. Huh. Gwen supposes there were worse options, like Web Woman or something, but she can't dwell on it. Johnny zooms directly to the top floors and starts sucking the flames into himself in a maneuver that's always looked cool on TV but incredible in person. She debates a minute between hostages and people being trapped in the burning floors, and makes a quick decision - the hostages would probably be okay for now. She leaps after her new superhero friends and starts picking through the rubble. Smoke starts to filter through her mask a bit, the pulsing red of the flames constantly close by. Despite Gwen's slightly enhanced vision all the rubble and smog make it hard to see, so she listens for the cries and lets her intuition lead her. She lifts beams and helps out person after person, getting them to edge of it so she can web sling them, holding onto her waist, down to safety. On one of these trips she glimpses Luke Cage, black hoodie covering intensely muscled imposing shoulders and hands held up to dissuade the robbers from shooting him (not that it would help). The fact that someone is dealing with the hostage situation eases the worry on her heart for a moment, but in the next Gwen rededicates herself to saving people from rubble and fire.

With her, The Human Torch, and another hero (she doesn't see them but she notices less people on every return trip) they get the floors evacuated within record time. She tells Johnny she's going to check to make sure no ones hiding in the still intact middle floors and he nods, lifting out another survivor with hands that are not on fire, jaw tight. Gwen's hunch was right and she finds several people trembling under their desks or huddled in copy rooms, and she leads them to the window and ever so slowly webs them to the ground (there will be no clock tower floors in Gwen's superhero story, she swears it). Gwen's backtracking on her way back up to the roof and webbing away when a rumble erupts at her feet and spidey sense sets the back of her head on  _fire_. There's a crumble and the sound of the building groaning, prompting Gwen to star climbing the stairs even faster. She's in the middle of a web pull to catapult herself higher when the stair level and one above it give and crash to ruins, with her still in it. 

Well, shit. On her first day out?

Her arm is caught in a really awkward place and her back is some kind of unhappy with her after how she twisted to defend herself, but Gwen's still in one piece. Possibly seconds away from being a pancake one piece, but Gwen will take what she can get. She pulls and twists and gets her arm out from being caught between a railing and a slab of concrete and squeaks when the rubble shifts with her movement. The way she's seen it, she's got two options. One, try to escape herself, or two, wait to be saved by the other heroes out there, and if she's being honest number two is not an option. If she's going to prove herself, if Gwen's going to do this thing for real, she's going to get herself out.

Gwen will  _not_ be saved. She will save herself, goddammit.

The minutes are tense as she stretches and moves, finding small holes to shimmy through and crawl under. Sweat collects on her back both from worry and the slight claustrophobia from the memories of the lab that the rusty metal and concrete trigger in her, but Gwen is a determined girl. She can see the outside, a sliver of fresh air reaching through the dust and debris, when the last slab she has to move suddenly lifts away and a red and blue man is looking at her with large white eyes that she gets the feeling is blinking at her. "Hey there. You doing okay, new hero?"

The small weak part of Gwen who swooned over knights in shining armor when she was thirteen wants to fall into Peter's arms and let him swing her to safety but Gwen hasn't been that starry eyed little girl in years. If she wasn't gone, she for sure died on the rainy day that they lowered her dad into the ground.

She smiles at him, and then realizes that he can't see it under the mask and climbs out, webbing to the building across that she and Johnny had been on not so long ago. Luke Cage is on the ground with his arms folded, talking to a police officer, and Johnny is still flaming at about building level. Spider-Man calls out a "Hey!" and webs up next to her, cocking his head. "Was it something I said?"

Gwen doubts anyone know Peter's body as well as she does but it's different in the suit somehow, or maybe it's just her heightened perception. He's still slimmer than most heroes, missing the sheer bulk of those like Thor and Luke Cage, or the taught beefcake look that Daredevil and Captain America are such fans of, but it's almost like they layered muscles over every ripple of his body. The tendons and curves of his biceps stand out in sharp relief against the bright spandex and kevlar fabric, and his thighs and shoulders look  _great_. Is that a stupid thing to notice? Whatever. They've already been over her weird hormones. The thought occurs to Gwen that the new heat that tugs between the two might out who she is and she scuttles back on the glass windows, feeling the most like a spider she'd ever felt oddly enough.

"Oh yeah, she doesn't like you man." The Human Torch has flamed over and chuckles, hands stretched behind his head. "This is Spider-Woman. I named her."

Spider-Man swings his head towards her. "Spider-Woman? Really? You like that?"

Gwen shrugs, still saying nothing. She gets the feeling that he'd recognize her voice, probably even her smell, so she slides another step back just in case. He'd told her as much while they were intertwined around each other, sweat lightly drying on their limbs and mouths gentle-soft against their skin, and she doesn't want to risk it.

"It's her first outing. I think she did pretty good, personally."

Spider-Man, who'd never stopped looking in her direction, seems to squint appraisingly in response to that. "Well yeah. Great job getting here before me and Luke by the way, you two."

Unfortunately there is not physical sign to indicate thanks without delving into memories of her ninth grade ASL class so she keeps her silence.

"Really? What did I do to you?" Spider-Man sounds sort of hurt. "There aren't any other spider-powers superheroes out here, so it would be great if we could be friends."

Gwen stays silent, even though it hurts her, and tilts her head in Johnny's direction, saluting him playfully. 

Johnny grins and inclines his head in response. "Right back at ya, Spider-Woman. Hope to fight crime with you again. And maybe lightly stalk people."

If she could, she would stick her tongue out at him, but she can't so she hopes he gets the message. Gwen can't leave without doing something to show she's not angry or bitter or something to Peter and racks her brain. She settles on a shrug, and then says, so gently under her breath that Peter will have to strain to hear it "Sorry", and throws out a web, swinging away.

The guilt rides her all the way home, through saving a kitten from a tree (a rite of passage, she assumes), and mistaking screams of pleasure for danger (spidey sense did a whole lot of nothing to help tell her everything was fine there). She stumbles in her window about an hour or so before Peter usually does and lets out a sigh, stripping off her costume and stuffing it into a plastic bag she's shoved in the corner of her closet. It's when she's finally in the shower about five minutes later that Gwen closes her eyes and runs her hands through her hair, going over it in her mind.

It could've been worse, she guesses. Her back still hurt, but it's getting better, and she managed not to bleed on her freshman outing. The rush and confidence that came from helping all those people still hums through Gwen's blood, and for a moment she forgives  _Oscorp_. Forgives them for trying to make a monstrosity because they made a hero instead, and isn't that a bitch for them to deal with? but then she remembers that they tried to kill her again and the latent anger at being wronged is back. Johnny was really nice, which shouldn't have surprised her, and accepted her pretty easily. The thought occurs to Gwen that perhaps meeting new superheroes happens to him often and it makes her sigh to herself. 

What has she gotten herself into?

 

* * *

 

When Peter gets home that night her eyes are already bleary from reading the material Bruce sent her the night before about a genomic study they'll be starting next week and a new, deep sort of weariness that she's not sure she likes is riding her bones.

He rips off his mask first thing and gulps in a breath of her air conditioned room, stopping for a moment in the window, eyes closed. It's a pretty sort of picture, the moonlight playing on the lines of his body and catching on the slight sheen of the spandex suit, his adams apple somehow appealing in the framing and brown eyelashes soft and lush against his cheeks. If Gwen was a photographer, she would've killed herself trying to represent it in photo format, but she's not. She lets it sink in, the look of him and love that feels like it's woven inside the fabric of her heart, and smiles.

"Long day?"

Peter blinks, as if coming back to himself, and tugs off a glove, coming over to drop a kiss on her forehead. "Mhm. But more like long night." There are no words spoken as he strips to his boxers and leaves the slippery suit on her bed, heading into her bathroom. A surge of guilt hits her as she remembers the cold shoulder she gave him as Spider-Woman, but she can't let it rule her.

He'll never understand, at least not in the near future. He's a terrible hypocrite in that sense. It's fine for him to go out and risk his life and come home to her with gashes so deep the tissues doesn't recover the same and bruises in so many different colors he looks like a Jackson Pollock painting but heaven forbid Gwen get a papercut trying to save others. She  _knows_ he wants to protect her. Gwen wants to protect Peter too. At least she can tell when her opposition is futile and all she can do is pray to whatever deity there is that Peter doesn't come back in too many pieces for her to sew back together again.

When Peter exits the shower he brings a cloud of steam with him, toweling off wet brown hair. He grins when he catches Gwen unashamedly ogling his chest, water dripping down his chiseled yet scarred torso in rivulets that led to the v of his waist and the boxers he'd only just absently tugged on. "Yes, Ms. Stacy?"

She may be tired, but she's never too tired to roll her eyes. "Shut up and come here." When the blonde kisses him there's an apology in it, a gentleness and a bite that doesn't often make it's way into their bed. Peter pulls off the long sleeved grey t-shirt she's wearing and cups her waist in his hand, pulling her to him so their bodies align. He doesn't question the different emotions that she belies with her touch because these days they're both filled with warring emotions. They tumble into bed as a mess of warm limbs and love and the next couple of hours is a soft blur punctuated with breathy sighs and unraveling moans.

They put each other back together, though they don't ask what tore them apart.

"I met a new hero today." he mumbles into the crown of her hair, the warmth from his mouth whispering through her bangs. Gwen tightens the arm thrown around his waist and wraps her leg more firmly around his, hiding a hitched breath in the hollow of his throat. 

"Yeah?"

"She didn't like me. Don't know why. She had spider powers too. Am I just unlikable on the first meeting?"

Gwen shushes him, running a fingertip down his spine, fingers small and delicate looking on the slight tan of his skin. "I'm sure if she just got to know you, she'd change her mind."  _Don't worry Peter. I'm sure she's already in love with you._

 

* * *

 

Bruce is distracted the next day at work, muttering a lot about some guy named Peter Quill and symbiotes and other worlds, stuff clearly way above Gwen's paygrade. He sends her home after only a half day promising she'll get her full pay, and it gives her the opportunity to make her meeting with the lawyer Matt Murdock earlier than discussed. His face is softer around the edges than she'd assumed (from what Gwen could tell anyone with ties to Jessica Jones had to be hard in some way or another), barring the scruff on his chin. The glasses he uses are a red so dark they throw her off a bit, though the smile he flashes her is gentle and unassuming in tone.

"You'll forgive me if I don't shake your hand. I wouldn't be able to see it, you see, and it makes the whole experience awkward for everybody."

"That's fair." Gwen self consciously smooths hands down skinny jeaned legs, the brush of her hair along her jaw comforting somehow. She drapes her forest green blazer on the back of her iron wrought chair, and is slightly calmed the bustle that comes from the outside tables of the restaurant floating in through the open windows. He chose a small Italian restaurant for their meeting of all places, in a middling part of Brooklyn. His suit isn't top of the line but it's clean and neat, and the tie at his neck is impeccably knotted. "So you got the pictures?" She winces almost as soon as the words left her mouth, knowing they stupid they sound unfortunately after the fact.

"Well I received them, you know in my  _hands_. I didn't actually see them, Miss Stacy, if that's your question." The sardonic tilt of the older man's words almost make an embarrassed blush comes to Gwen's cheeks. "I do however have it on good authority that they look very damning to the cause of you being held against your will."

That's putting it lightly. She's sure you can get nightmares from a little 'being held against your will', but you don't get the crippling fear that grips her in the middle of the night or the half memories of being brought back from a fathomless sinister and yet somehow neutral edge into something Gwen's still terrified to slightly think about. "Do you think we have a case?"

Matt taps a thoughtful finger against his walking stick, leaning on it to the side of the table. "I think you have a choice."

The waitress appears just then as if she knows the conversation is at a surprisingly quick tipping point. Matt demurs and only asks for a Caesar salad, and Gwen asks for the four cheese lasagna. 'Beth' leaves them with a basket of rolls and a promise of their orders being right up, both of them curiously quiet in the face of the blonde waitresses geniality and cheer. 

"A choice?" Gwen speaks up, grey green eyes avid on him. "Between what?"

"You can either A, take this to court with all of its bells and whistles, or B, take it directly to the company and ask for a settlement. The first one will bring you loads of public scrutiny into why your mother held a funeral for a daughter who was apparently not dead, why you're coming after a company you worked for for however many years, why you're just bringing this up now, and what, if any, negative side affects did you receive while under  _Oscorp_ 's, ah, care." The words settle between them lightly, though the hold the promise of darker things. It isn't until she feels actual pain in her palm that Gwen looks down in surprise - she'd fisted her hands so tightly her nails were beginning to draw blood. "The second one wont be quite as satisfying, but the scandal that comes from taking such a huge corporation to task will destroy it's reputation. Perhaps destroy it entirely after the number that the Lizard had done to it. You can even choose to be anonymous in the second one. You won't have to go to court, but you'll still need a lawyer." The blind man indicated himself. "Therefore, me. And you need someone to get you even more incriminating information on them, perhaps in the realm of other experiments, thus, our mutual friend Jessica."

Gwen chews her bottom lip thoughtfully. She might not know Matt Murdock from Adam or Eve but she trusted Jessica that made Matt by extension more trustworthy on a stranger on the street. He seemed sensible, and smart, and apparently specialized in the weird cases. He also had a weak spot for foolhardy ones that contributed to his spectacular losing rate, but Jessica assured her that her case wouldn't be like that. "What would you do?" she chooses carefully, watching his face.

Beth chooses this moment to come back with their food, because of course, and they both spend a minute digging in. The lasagna is remarkably good and she finds that she was actually much hungrier than she assumed - the blonde has no problem attacking it vigorously. There's a certain freedom in knowing your dinner partner wont judge you because they quite literally can't see to judge.

Matt raises one dark brow over his glasses, spearing a piece of lettuce. "Hungry, I see?"

Gwen full on blushes this time, but ignores the question. "You're avoiding what I asked you."

"No. I'm deliberating how to answer. There's a difference." He eats a few more pieces of his lettuce and then sits back a bit, placing his cane across his knees. "I don't know. It would depend on what kind of person you are. What do you want out of this case. For starters, your mother is a highly successful corporate lawyer - why didn't you ask her to represent you? Why did you trust Jessica, a woman you met on a train? Or me, who you just me tonight?" Matt raises valid points, Gwen has to say; but she doesn't regret her decisions.

"My mom is too close it." Gwen says, digging her fork into the cheesy deliciousness before her. "She does well with corporate cases because they're never very emotional, at least not to the client, and it helps her distance herself. Anything with too much of an emotional aspect she refuses to take, because she knows she'll have trouble winning it." Her left hand absently picks a piece of lint on her black button down as she remembers a case her mom had to refuse about a single mother who'd worked for a company for 10 years and not only was let go without severance pay, but was accused of embezzlement, thus ruining her chances at getting a job anywhere else in the same field. Helen has felt horrible turning her away, but personally recommended her to a lawyer friend who specialized in cases like hers and helped pay the legal fees without the single mothers knowledge. "My coming home almost broke her all over again. I'd rather not do that to my mom."

"Okay, well how about one of your moms lawyer friends? I'm sure she has plenty of those." 

The blonde girl heaves out a sigh and flicks a wayward bang strand with her fingers, wishing Matt could see so they could lock eyes. "I wanted someone with an outsiders perspective. What killed me was dirty, what was done to me was dirty, and Jessica is a person who isn't afraid of dirt. I like that about her. And by her recommendation of you, I can't imagine you mind it much either."

He regards her, which is strange when she knows he doesn't actually know what she looks like or her expression, and takes another thoughtful bite of salad, the plate nearly done. "I see. You're not wrong Miss Stacy, I and my partner are not afraid of dirt. I'll take your case." A happier, brighter version of Gwen might have squealed and said ' _Really?'_  but this one feels incredibly proud of herself.

 _I am just winning people over right and left_ she thinks to herself, puffing out her chest a bit, and then immediately feels self centered and stops that train of thought. "Good."

"We'll decide on an option together once Jessica gets back to me with more dirt. Don't forget to pay her, she gets grumpy and less dependable when her fees aren't given to her. Friends or no." Matt waves a hand in the air in a general direction. "Waitress! The check please, and a carry home box for the lady."

It's only when Gwen gets home that she wonders how he knew she had food left over.

 

* * *

 

"I just don't get it bro."

Spider-Man and The Human Torch sit on the roof of the Baxter Building, a few feet away from Reed Richard's personal observatory. A blanket is spread on the ground and the two young men take a much needed break from heroing to look at the stars and talk like the good friends they are. Earlier that day Spider-Man had had a run in with the mysteriously-silent-only-when-around-him female equivalent of himself and it had him a little bummed.

"Before I got there she and Iron Man were trading cheerful camaraderie like it was nothing. It took me months to get to that kind of level with him."

"If I remember you telling me right, you had a hero worship complex with Tony Stark  _and_ Iron Man." Johnny points out. "Spider-Woman just kind of settles in with whoever she's fighting with and somehow just gets along well. I don't know how she does it. To be honest I want to even say it's a special power of hers."

Peter frowns, an expression Johnny can see from the part of his mask that's pulled up. The top half stays on, as Peter is still unwilling to let Johnny know who he is. "Except for when it comes to me."

"Yeah, well, sucks to be you. Now you know how I feel when the ladies immediately stop swooning after me when you swing by."

Spider-Man laughs, stretching out a leg. "That's because they know that if they get down and dirty with you, they might get burned. Both literally and figuratively."

Johnny makes a scoffing noise under his breath. "Fine. Whatever. Be that way. I'll just ask Spider-Woman out next time I see her."

A strange feeling lurches in Peter's gut when Johnny says that and he waits a beat too long to respond. Spider-Woman doesn't like him in the slightest bit if you can infer from her actions, so why does he feel a strange possessiveness of her? Maybe it's the fact that they have really similar powers. Or that she reminds him of someone he can't quite put his finger on. Selective mutism or not, something about the way she moves in battle, and lilt of her voice that he hears before he gets close, is strikingly familiar to Peter.

Regardless, he's not a fan of Johnny trying to 'hit that'. "Sure man. Whatever." Not that he's going to  _tell_ the Human Torch, of course. He stands, cracks his back, and shakes out his arms. "Alright. I got to get home."

"Aw, running home to your Mommy?" Johnny teases, still on the ground. 

"No, to my gorgeous girlfriend." Peter says right back, amused.

"Oh, yeah. The gorgeous, supportive, amazing girlfriend you always say you have that I'll never get to meet. I'm half convinced it's just your hand, a porno magazine, and a healthy imagination."

Peter laughs, perching on the edge of the building. "Believe what you want. Night, Johnny."

"Night, man." 

As the Human Torch goes back inside his home and Peter Parker webs his way back to what he knows is a wonderful girl and a warm bed, Peter makes a promise to himself. Spider-Woman will like him, he swears. And he'll find out exactly why she seems so familiar to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This update has been a bit coming, but I must say that SpoiledBat's detailed review and response to the last chapter prodded me into action. 10 points to Gryffindor to anyone who knows who the waitress 'Beth' is in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. See you guys at the next chapter!


	10. Clashing.

Bruce asks less questions than she thought he would.

"You need access? To Ravenscroft?" One brow raises in interest, his hands making notes on a patent-pending StarkPad. "Why do you need for me to get you clearance to go there? It's a glorified insane asylum. They test on prisoners there, to hear rumor tell it."

Gwen sighs, scratching at the back of her neck. Her hair is growing now, Thanksgiving being right around the corner and everything. She loosens the high pony and blinks guarded grey green eyes at her boss, who she's begun to count as a friend. A grumpy, uncooperative friend at best, but still. "I need to visit a patient there, and this is the best way to do it."

"Why can't you use your own name?"

"I'm afraid if he finds out, he wont see me."

Bruce pushes his glasses up his face and taps the StarkPad against his other hand, the silver of his salt and pepper hair catching the light. "Do I want to know who?"

She debates for a second, fingers tracing a ghost pattern on her jeans. "Nope. Just trust me."

He holds her gaze and Gwen returns it in kind. The man is a huge fan of the whole non verbal communication thing, she's discovered. She supposes there are worse ways to get along with people. "Fine." Bruce says finally. "Any particular day?"

"Wednesday?" the blonde hedges, stretching back in her desk chair. (it still meant a lot that Bruce went and got her one. the man never sat down, she was sure. he even ate his lunch standing up, which was probably the second weirdest thing about him). 

"Wednesday it is." Bruce ducks his head and then turns his back to her. "JARVIS, please try algorithm number 451."

" _Yes, Doctor Banner._ "

They don't talk about it again. 

 

* * *

 

 Jessica sends her more pictures from Gwen's underground cell and cc's Matt to cover all her bases. 

There's vampire experiments, dead bodies floating in gel-filled cells, murderous robots in development under Max Dillon's old boss, loads of stuff Gwen's shocked she'd never heard about before. They even had tissues samples from Dr. Connors lost  _arm_ for Chrissakes. Why do they need that? The world does not need another Lizard incident, but then neither does it need vampires or killer robots. Clearly _Oscorp_  does not share the same morals that Gwen and the rest of the normal, reasonable citizens of New York do. 

"My professional advice," Matt says on the phone a few days later, "is to go with option B. But if you need some time to think about it that's up to you."

Gwen would like to  _never_ have to do this again but that simply isn't an option. Someone tried to break into her apartment while she was at work, and Cindy's study group was the only thing that stopped them. Peter was more paranoid by the minute that someone was going to try and off her while she was out of his sight and kept following her to work, which was increasingly annoying. She loved him and everything, and the thought was incredibly sweet, but Jesus Christ she could take care of herself, more than he knew. The constant hovering was both infringing on her freedom and making it more difficult to go out as Spider-Woman, which got on all of Gwen's nerves. Plus he was missing classes that he really needed to go to, so she put her foot down after a couple of days.

("What if something happens?" Peter had sighed in defeat, leaning his forehead against her chest and wrapping muscled, lean arms around her legs. Gwen dropped a kiss on his head and hugged him tight, pale fingers combing through his hair. 

"Then I'll deal with it." she says simply. "You've got to trust me, or this relationship is never going to work."

He groaned, but agreed. That doesn't stop him from walking her home from work every day.)

Matt and Foggy, his lawyer partner, deliver the settlement request and attached evidence to _Oscorp_ on a Thursday while Gwen's at work. She's busy trying to organize their research from the day before (Bruce takes notes by hand and JARVIS can only do so much without hands) when the audio in the lab abruptly switches from Vivaldi to a news feed. The Incredible Hulks alter ego is gazing at his glass screen, one hand under his chin, a frown on his lips. "Have you hear about this?" he asks, turning it so she can see. "JARVIS raise the volume."

The AI obliges and the perky blonde reporters voice gets louder "... _yet another scandal today for the Oscorp Corporation when they were served with papers today from the firm of Nelson & Murdock. Their client, whose identity is currently undisclosed, is seeking recompense for unconsented physical testing and body snatching, of all things. My source tells me that there's more unconfirmed evidence about further inhumane testing that the company has been operating without consent from the American Coalition of Scientific Research..."_ They show footage of Matt and Foggy leaving the front steps, the blonde repeating that there is no further comment at this time and that it's in _Oscorp_ 's hands now, Matt staying silent. It's one thing to talk at a crappy apartment that's serving as a law firm about doing something, and then seeing the blowback in real time. Gwen wraps her arms around herself, suddenly cold.

"This is the third time they've been caught doing something shady." Bruce says softly, dark eyes hooded. "First the Lizard, then Electro, now this? How can they still be in business?"

"I don't know." The steel edge of her words catches the blonde off guard, but she means every word. "But they shouldn't be." Gwen attacks the stack of files with a sudden ferocity and turns her chair so her back is to the screen. "Please turn it down JARVIS I can't work." she bites out, any attempt to soften the tone clearly not working.

"You worked there for three years, didn't you?"

Gwen turns fiercely at the guarded accusation, grey green eyes flashing. "Dr. Connors, before he went crazy trying to replace his missing limb, was a  _good man_. He was trying to help, he just got lost. You of all people can understand that, don't you Dr. Banner?" Stupid, anger fueled words are the ones that escape from her mouth but she can't stop herself, desperately defending herself both to him and in a way, to herself.

"I acknowledged my mistakes, _Miss Stacy_." Bruce shoots back, eyes suddenly hard. "I didn't stay there, I destroyed the evidence so no one would ever have to go through this again. So no one could hurt people like I'm capable of."

"Yes. _Capable_. Everyone is capable of hurting others, of causing pain, but the actions of a corporation do _not_ speak for all it's employees. I stayed there, worked there, for a lot of reasons that you never even thought to ask before accusing me of being involved. We've been working together almost five days a week for a month, Bruce. Am I that person? Have I given you any indication that I would willingly attempt to hurt people for my bosses, or my own sordid scientific curiosity?" Gwen doesn't know if it's bad for her to feel hurt, but she does, and it leaks into her tone. " _I stayed_ , Dr. Banner, even after the company was responsible for stealing my father from me. The money there was good and suddenly my family only had one provider and I was eighteen years old with no degree, not even her diploma yet. I didn't have the _luxury_ , Dr. Banner, to go looking for another job, and the work that I was personally doing helped people, not hurt them."

The doctor barked out a laugh that was devoid of amusement. "We are scientists Miss Stacy we don't have the _luxury_ to do anything. We have the _responsibility_ to do better."

"Responsibility? I had to take care of my _family_ , Bruce." Gwen defended, believing in her words. "Maybe in the end I was trying to pay some sort of recompense for all the people whose DNA would never recover from the lizard mist that changed them, or I was attempting to balance the goddamn scales so that I could be responsible for _Oscorp_ helping some people instead of ruining them all. _Oscorp_ isn't a great company, no, but some of the people that work there are good. And I thought that working with Stark Industries meant you were welcomed. You were accepted for your gifts and because this place wants to help people. Wants to make their lives better. Forgive me for that because I was clearly wrong." The girl stands abruptly and grabs her coat from the back of her chair. "I'm leaving early today."

"Good. Maybe that's for the best."

"Fine."

It's silent for a few minutes after the door slams shut behind the twenty year old before Bruce breaks the silence with a low sigh, one hand massaging the bridge of his nose. "Shit." he mumbles.

" _Shit is right, sir_." JARVIS agrees, and that's all that's said.

 

* * *

 

While Gwen and her boss are having an argument of epic proportions Spider-Man gets sucked into a battle on an alternate universe with the Guardians of the Galaxy, who the public has only been aware of for a couple of months. They're victorious, but some kind of substance escapes from it's container on their ship and takes a liking to Peter. Spider-Man is taking the streets in a black and white outfit that New York is, for now, taking relatively well.

Gwen doesn't come back to work for a couple of weeks.

Tony takes the leap and makes Spider-Man an official member of the Avengers. He persuades the wall crawler to use the standard red and blue suit for the press junket and Peter acquiesces, though he is twitchy and mildly irritated the whole time. Pepper, noticing this, keeps the questions short and sweet so they can hustle him back into the Tower as soon as possible. Spider-Man's mouth is dry and his comments laden with slight insults the whole time and for the first time, Tony wonders if he's made the wrong decision.

The blackness overwhelms his costume the moment he's back on the streets again and Peter lets out a rakish laugh of relief. 

It takes Tony way too long to notice that the personality traits Spider-Man had been exhibiting that day reminded him frighteningly of withdrawal.

 

* * *

 

"You've got some new neighbors, Osborn."

Harry pauses in pulling his swiftly growing too long hair away from his face, green eyes squinting. He walks to the bars of the cell and wraps his fingers around them, gaze lighting on two men.

One was huge, broad muscled shoulders and meaty hands with blue eyes and a blonde buzzcut. "Whatcha looking at, _punk_." He spits out, words hissing through his teeth, the darkened skin around his eye telling Harry that the man had fought valiantly to escape.

"Another criminal, brute." Harry responds, his dry humor never having left even during his stint in prison. Big, liked to start problems and punch his way out, a pretty cut and dry criminal.

The guard pushes the blonde's head down, growling "shut up, Brock - we can make it much worse for you here."

The second man is slimmer, with a shock of red hair and brown eyes that chill the Osborn heir from the inside heir and make him actually take a physical step away from his window. When their gazes collide the other male smiles slowly with too much teeth, his head cocking a bit to the side even as he shuffles past. "Hellooo," the man coos, almost purrs, and the small, normally innocent word slides down Harry's back with dark promise.

The look in the second mans eyes reminds Harry of the crazy that swirled in his fathers as he lay dying in front of him and it causes pain to flash through his mind, bringing up pictures of green teeth and wind biting at his face.

_Take your hope away -_

_Peter betrayed me -_

_Revenge -_

He stumbles backwards, falling haphazardly on the bed, one knee still on the floor. "Bad - man -" Harry growls out, a gasp ripping from his throat as his back bows out, brown and green racing through his veins. His nails grow and sharpen, and his hair grows even wilder than it already is, and the eyes that fly open at the ceiling are marbled green through and through

The guard assigned to Harry Osborn hears noises he's treated to about once every two weeks and slides metal over the window, unwilling to listen to the crazed murderous talk and cackles that go through the twenty two year old when he's in one of his 'episodes'. He also was creeped out by their second arrival and inclined his head the gaurd assigned to the redhead after the prisoners had been forced into their cells. "Who's that?"

"Serial murderer," the other man replies, scratching at his chin. "Cletus Kasady."

"Crazy bird."

"Not as much as yours."

Harry's guard shrugs. "True. Powers really make a difference don't they?"

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry. I know this is much shorter than usual but I swear the next update will more than make up for it. Trying to get my feet back under me when it comes to this fic is harder than I thought lol. Anywayyyyy, I really apologize. It'll all be worth it, I promise. Probably two or three more chapters left, then a epilogue.


End file.
